The Threshold of Summer

May the Liminal Dieties bless us all.

Drifting

Steam rising from a hot street after a rain, or restless souls drifting in silence?

There are certain days when one might be convinced it's both.

Milk Moon

A glass of milk, like a little moon in the kitchen to match the one in the sky.

This and Every Evening

When your hobby is trying to make art out of things that can't be seen, the results are going to be a little...unusual.

By the way, I finally came across the picture that inspired the name of this project/blog many years ago. I'd been looking for it for ages. It was a handbill advertising "phantasmagoria, this and every evening."

I still think it fits perfectly, whether I live in Victoria or not.

Dream Dogs

Every May, as the school year begins to wind down, a memory of a dream comes to me. I don't know why it remains after all this time; perhaps because I've never really understood it. The mind does love a mystery.

It was near the end of fifth grade and I was eleven years old. God, what a wretched year. The teacher was a snob. there were preppies everywhere and when you are the tallest girl in class (again!) there is no way to hide. It was the definition of awkward, and I was glad to see the back of it.

This is where the young adult novel usually begins, I think.

Anyway, it was May, it seems like a Wednesday. It was the day before the class skating party, which would not have been held at the rink on a crowded Friday, and it wasn't piano lesson day, which would have been a Thursday. What I'd been doing after coming home from school is unknown - probably drinking Tropicana orange juice and playing with my hamster. Or scrawling in my notebook and reading Nancy Drew. On my bedside table was a small radio, playing insipid pop, this I know for sure. I wasn't that keen on insipid pop, but I was nervous of FM because every time I flipped the dial, the stations were playing Pink Floyd. There's only so much prog rock an eleven year old can take.

I didn't normally take naps after school (or ever, for that matter) so the very fact I'd fallen asleep was unusual. But it was a mild evening, my window was open and there was a fresh spring breeze.The radio was probably playing something by Paul Davis, as KTSA was wont to do. It was about 6 PM. I slept.

Now, the neighborhood where we lived was an oval shape, crossing a number of undulating hills. It wasn't terribly big, but back then I hadn't been allowed to wander to the far edges, and the hill on the southernmost curve of the oval was too steep for a bike anyway. That sharp curve, looming high over the town, seemed a place of unfathomable mystery to me, and in my dream, I suddenly found myself standing there.

It was dark night, pitch black, as the full moon began to rise. I could feel something about to happen. Dogs were barking in the distance.

Out of the woods beyond the hill the dogs came bounding. First one  - an English sheepdog, if I remember correctly -  then more and more of all kinds, dobermans and St. Bernards and Afghan hounds and golden retrievers. They were all barking and baying as they came over the hill.

I knew - the way one does in dreams - that what I was seeing was a secret ritual, that the dogs had come to gather here under the moon. I knew the ritual occurred only at certain times, for reasons unknown and unknowable to any human. The weight and importance of this secret filled the dream, and I was amazed that I'd been able to witness it, even if I didn't understand.

I woke slowly as the sound of the neighborhood dogs barking merged with my dream. Through the window I could see the lavender twilight sky and the full moon above the ash trees. I knew it must have been the barking dogs that had inspired this mysterious dream, and I felt an uncharacteristic delight. It gave it the ring of truth.

The next day was the class skating party, and then the long memorial day weekend, and sometime during that weekend is when I emerged, imago-like, from my awkward phase of puberty at last.

Perhaps this is what the dream was about, albeit in an oblique way. The secrets and hidden rituals of adolescence. The awkward, plain girl who fell asleep that evening might have been a dog in schoolyard parlance, but perhaps the message was that dogs can be fascinating, mysterious creatures as well. Or something like that. Whatever the case, I will always treasure the dream.

And this is the point where the young adult novel usually ends.


Notes: 
1. I was correct about the day, and the phase of the moon. Am patting self on back, as this was an appallingly long time ago.
2. Despite the variety of dogs in the dream, I have only rendered one type in my drawing, This is  because I'm terrible at drawing dogs.

The Goddess Of Thorns

It's occurred to me to wonder - many times since I've been back here, in fact - f there is a goddess of this place.

If there is, I can only conclude that she must be a goddess of thorns, spines and stones.

Firewheels And Cat Claws

While I was out hunting for storm clouds this evening, I came across this clutch of firewheels hidden inside a cat's claw acacia.

They reminded me of treasure in old fairy tales, all wrapped up in thorns.

Witchgrass

Witchgrass blowing in the breeze. A sign of the summer to be.

In the Underwood

In the thicket near the bluff, among all the dead wood and cacti, these delicate blue flowers appeared.

Blue curls (Phacelia congesta)
Wildflower org

Spirit Of The Water

When it's been raining for a while, the sides of the road fill with water, like little flood-meadows.One morning after a particularly wet few days, I dreamt that I went to look at one of these puddles, and saw a golden koi rise to the surface.

I didn't know what it meant, but it felt lucky somehow. After all, what else could a golden koi mean?

The next day, I happened to be next to a murky pond. I didn't imagine there was any living thing there, but suddenly a golden koi rose to the surface, much like the dream.

It's not clear if that week was any luckier than usual, but I felt an uncommon peace surround me.

I suppose luck is in the eye of the beholder.

May Day

Fiery-colored agarita berries, seen on our Beltane walk this evening.

Pink Moon

In honor of this month's moon, Nick Drake's sweetly melodious and vaguely threatening song:

"I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon's gonna get you all"

As an aside, because poor Nick Drake was gone long before my time, this song reminds me of the moment I realized I was finally the target demographic for car commercials

Whatever the case, let's hope the pink moon lets us off the hook this time.

Walpurgisnacht

It's the 30th of April, Walpurgisnacht, witches eve, and my husband's birthday.

Even though Saint Walpurga offers protection from witchcraft, we don't feel the need. It's not witches that worry us, it's regular old misfortune and malfeasance that keep us up at night. So grabbing on to the energy of the evening and the thinness of the veil, we walked the boundaries of the land and asked for protection for ourselves and our loved ones in the coming season. As we did, a cool fresh wind kicked up and the katydids began to sing.

It seemed as good a sign as any.

Widow's Tears

A stand of Widow's Tears has sprung up in the garden, a testament to how wet this Spring has been.

On a vaguely related note, last night I heard a chuck-will's-widow in the woods, by far the earliest in the year I've ever heard one. Their call is the quintessential sound of a summer night.

Widows were the theme of the day, it seems.

Mermaids

As a kid, whenever we went to the zoo, I imagined the aquarium building was a temple dedicated to a mermaid goddess. It looked just the thing, with its seashell facade and cool blue interior.

I was silently pondering this during a recent trip there with my family, how despite Atargatis, Aphrodite or the sirens, and despite the deep sea being more mysterious even than outer space, we tend to see mermaids in terms of mythology but not spirituality. 

The moon jellies were a particular favorite, by the way

I was still thinking about it in the car the next day; I suppose it stuck with me because I've never really gotten over moving inland. I was born amid this limestone karst, but the ocean brings me a certain sort of peace that a river can never match. I miss the salty sea air.

So we were driving, and I looked to up from my reverie to see, rather amusingly, this mermaid waving at passersby.

Many people who've known me have pointed out that I don't seem very American, but here is one instance where I really fit the stereotype - I love this sort of kitschy roadside art. I also love synchronicites, and coming upon a mermaid while you are pondering mermaids would certainly count as one. A good sign, perhaps?

It gets better - just that week, I discovered, the city of San Marcos had installed a number of painted mermaid sculptures and holy cow, there's a map. You know how I feel about maps.

mermaid sculptures waiting in the beautiful bleakness of a storage unit

The relationship between San Marcos and mermaids, I assume, has to do with Aquarena Springs and its Aquamaids and possibly a legend of a Native girl who made a bargain with a magical catfish. However, these are not motifs that traveled even a few miles west to my town

Soon I will pop over to San Marcos and track down the statues. It will be an adventure.True, these are river mermaids and not the ocean, but still I feel the touch of something otherworldly in this string of synchronicities. Perhaps the mermaid goddess lives after all.

Rituals

Staying up late, watching grainy old episodes of In Search Of...in the dark

Echoes

Much of my childhood was spent in the dimly lit netherworld of movie theaters and skating rinks. One of the theaters my brother managed had a rather eerie atmosphere. These pictures are modern - the building has undergone quite a bit of renovation in recent years - but it gives a hint at least of how it looked back those days. Despite any resident ghosts, the place was a sort of safe haven for me, a place of endless Twizzlers and SweeTarts and fizzy orange soda. 

I originally posted the tale of my experiences at another site, which I've reposted here:

Back in the 80's, my brother was the manager of a movie theater. It was a huge old building, built during the age of the silent movie palace. I spent a good chunk of my childhood there - bro would put me to work cleaning the auditoriums between shows and making popcorn at the concession stand. The rest of the time I'd roam the place, which was full of nooks and crannies. It was a bit maze-like, so that was pretty fun. I was quite fond of the place.

Probably all theaters have a creepy feeling after hours. When my cousins would visit, we'd listen to what my cousin Nancy called "theater echoes" - those sort of faint, disembodied voices you hear in a place like that. I suppose it's the acoustics that cause it, I liked to imagine it's some sort of trapped sound that just bounces around for years and years. Anyway, that's probably not too unusual in a place like that, but it did add to the atmosphere.

Sometimes I'd get the distinct feeling I was being watched, but I put that down to the cranky old projectionist - he'd been working there since the 1920's and I was forbidden to go into his booth (which was covered in nudie pictures the times I did sneak a look!) But some other things weren't so easy to pass off.

One was the thing we called "the bat" It wasn't a real bat (though occasionally one got in) because it would have to have been huge, able to move at warp speed and disappear from even an enclosed space instantly. The thing we would see was a large black shape like a wing that would appear in the corner of our eye. Turn to look at it, and it would appear in the corner of our other eye. I recall sitting on the stairs one day for ages, intently watching the thing flit through my peripheral vision - I was determined to look at it properly, you understand. But no luck.

This wasn't scary at all, just weird, and I thought it was just me until one day the staff were standing around and started talking about it - same large black shape, same peripheral flitting.

Then there were some nights, at 12 or 1 in the morning, my brother would be up in the offices finishing the day's paperwork when we'd hear distinctly human sounding footsteps slowly pacing the roof of the building. I recall bro saying that this happened all the time, and not being especially concerned about it. The roof wasn't flat though, so it couldn't have just been someone taking a stroll up there.

the basement

What was somewhat scarier was the basement. That's where the marquee letters were kept, and we'd have to go down there late at night when it was time to change the sign. The basement had a dirt floor and was always cold. Some of the older staff members attributed any haunting activities to this place, because years back one of the workers, a janitor who'd been allowed to sleep there, had died of a heart attack. I tried to stay away from there, not the least because the basement door was inside the men's restroom - the horror stories practically write themselves.

But the thing that really, truly convinced me the place was haunted were the candy machines. For decades, there'd been a couple of candy machines in the lobby, selling gumballs or candied peanuts for a nickel. Probably these machines has been used thousands of times over the years, but while my brother was working there, they'd decided to remove them. Still, after hours when everything was quiet, you could still hear them loud and clear - non-existent coin going into the slot, turn of the invisible crank, immaterial candy rattling down the chute. Over and over, clear as a bell. Everyone who worked there knew the sound.

This is probably the most harmless and innocent of all ghostly manifestations, but very convincing to me. 

Looking back, I think this place wasn't seriously frightening because any hauntings were strictly of the Stone Tape variety.

Edit - I've just looked it up and found an article claiming the theater is haunted - but blaming all the haunting on the ghost of the pervy projectionist! Silly. They should have asked me. Although I'm sure his shade is still hanging around.

Caduceus

At the medical center in Victoria was this imposing caduceus sculpture.  It always struck me as a little strange. Victoria being such a conservative place in general, it seemed even less likely that the medical center would be possessed of such a flight of modernity. Especially one verging on a sort of Pagan spookiness.

It was one of those places where the dullness of Victoria had cracked and weirdness leaked through.

Heart Shaped Box

My son, who is 16, was listening to Nirvana's Uplugged In New York on the way to school the other morning. I thought to myself, it must be coming around to the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's death soon. 24 years ago. How time flies.

I knew it not because of my memory - which is good for this sort of thing, yes - but because of the feeling in the air, the deathly smell of Spring.

It's understood that Spring is the season of rebirth, but those of us who tangle with despair know the other side of it - that beneath all the new green is the sickening smell of decay. There are terrible things down in the leaf mould and humus, things that don't bear thinking about if you know what's good for you. It makes sense to me that suicides increase when the growing season begins.

My son wonders what it was like back then, when Nirvana were the big music act and grunge was the thing. I tell him, there was a reason we liked our music so aggressively, appealingly* glum. It was relevant. It was the mood of the time.

Case in point - on the day Cobain died, I was visiting my neighbor Kathy and her brother Darren at their parents house, up at the lake. They were house-sitting while their folks were away, and for my part I was just glad to be out of town. The change of season had done nothing to ease the damp chill of my apartment or the dark pall inside it. There was a lot wrong in my life - Kathy knew this, I think, that's why she'd invited me - and I desperately needed a break.

Diary entry, April 5, 1994

Pain is measured in dols
Triptych - a three panel painting
Gold - Au
Paroxysm - a fit
Sibilant - hissing
Apocryphal - mythical
Alfred Nobel invented a number of explosives

A creepy, creepy day. Cold and humid and dark. I woke in the night and thought "winter is coming" and was filled with dread, as if it really were Autumn and it would all be to do again. The eeriness I feel is so big it's beyond describing.

....

Of course, on the the 5th of April, none of us knew that Cobain was dead. We only knew he was missing. There was some concern though, and there were updates on the TV news. Only a month before, he'd been in a coma, and things had seemed iffy for a while. I commented to Darren (no doubt sounding more callous than I'd meant) that if Cobain had passed away, he might be considered a legend, like Morrison or Joplin or Hendrix had been. I wasn't thinking about it so coldly, really. I was just pondering the strangeness of such a scene, in which one went from being a "troubled rock star" in the here and now to being something quite different in memory.

A few days later, I was back in my dismal apartment when the news broke that Cobain's body had been found. While I hadn't necessarily been convinced before that moment he hadn't just been hiding out somewhere, suddenly it seemed obvious that he could have met no other fate. Suddenly, it seemed that the anguish in his voice had contained a certain foreknowledge of doom.

But then, a downward spiral is always easy to see in retrospect.

I had no personal attachment to the band besides owning their albums; I hadn't even seen them live. Still, that day I felt something shift. It was subtle and nameless, but it was there. The song Heart Shaped Box played on the radio again and again, not that it had ever been away for long.

By then the weather was hot, as humid as steaming wool. I went for a walk among the warren of streets on the other side of Main. The leaves and grass were unfurling in a grotesque display of fecundity and the scent of decay was overwhelming. "The day was bright and shiny like a mirror" I wrote in my journal later, "but the underside of the mirror is death."

Indeed, half hidden under the overgrown shrubbery on Market street, I'd come upon a dead rooster in the gutter; his iridescent feathers shining blue and green. It seemed telling somehow that no one had bothered to retrieve the broken corpse. A terrible knowledge gnawed at my unconscious, and to this day I'm afraid to walk down that street. I have the uncanny feeling I might meet my own ghost.

This is how it was back in those days; It's hardly even symbolic. It was the mood of the time. Anguish and apathy buzzed like fat flies in the sodden heat. Hidden things festered out of sight. For a long time, a raw nerve had been thrumming in the background of the country.**We all felt it, we all knew it was there, but Kurt Cobain had helped give it voice.

How much all this would mean to my son, I don't know. It would be nice if it didn't have to mean anything. It would be nice if his generation had no need to deal with raw nerves and corruption and things hidden out of sight. But it seems that this will not be the case.

This Spring, the landscape has burst into greenery like I haven't seen since then. Pollen blows in waves, water drips from weeds. I feel shaky, remembering the dead rooster and my own ghost left on the side of the road. I'm middle-aged now. I tell myself I've been around, there's no need to be afraid. It's only Spring. It always passes, if you wait long enough.

I tell myself this, and hope this year that it's true.
I keep watch and wait for Summer to come.

*We were depressed as fuck, but we still grew up listening to Abba and The Knack.
**For further reference re: my claim that something had been wrong in the background for a long time, see the article Kids In The Dark by David Breskin. The relevant point to me here is not the Satanic Panic angle or even so much the murder itself, but that a whole community of teenagers kept silent. 

Portents

Driving down to the shop tonight, I saw a screech owl drop to the ground from the trees. I slowed to look at it; It turned and raised its wings and stared.

Oh, I know they live around here, I hear their eerie trills in the woods, but they are rarely seen. To see an owl is rife with portents. It causes a shiver down the spine. It's an uneasy feeling to be caught in the gaze of those predatory eyes.

But I've had them swoop over my head before and hoot outside my window, and nothing in particular came of it. Regardless, superstition is not so easy to dismiss. I had a  dream once, years before I came back here, about seeing owls in that self-same creek.

I suppose if there is a meaning to be drawn from this, it's a reminder to be alert and aware. Polish your aura, cast out your demons and hope the fates are kind.

Sunday

Last night, my youngest son and I made made his Easter nest for the bunny to fill with eggs in the morning. Because of all the hard freezes this Winter, there were not so many colorful wildflowers this year. We did have these nice irises, though.

The bunny provides. (The bunny was hard at work before sunrise, by the way)

The results of our family-wide cascarón war. Much like last year's chalk war, we all won.  It's said that having a cascaron broken over one's head brings good luck. If this is the case, we are all set for the year. Now If I can just convince the others that cleaning up is just as lucky...

I confess that this Easter I have felt a bit solemn. My youngest is 7 and it's suddenly clear that after all these many years, the clock is ticking on these old Easter traditions, for my own children, at least. Then I will have to wait until they have children of their own before I can play Easter bunny again. 

In the meantime, I will make the most of it. 

The Girl With Hearts On Her Pockets

Last night's dream was an unsettling one. Not a nightmare really, but unnerving somehow. I am still unsure what it means.

A winter storm was coming, a blizzard the likes of which we'd never seen. It hadn't arrived yet, but everyone was warned to be prepared. I was at home, alone. Where everyone else had gone I've no idea - it didn't seem to matter. You know how it is in dreams.

I looked around - the house was dark, and not warm, but the walls were sturdy and I figured I'd be all right if I chose to stay. At the same time, I'd had an offer - who knows how it came - from a group pf hippies who had set up a tent site on the edge of town. They were nice tents - more like yurts, really, specially insulated and heated - in which to ride out the storm.  There were 200 tents, the hippies said, and they had one for me if I wanted it.

I was doubtful at first. I didn't even know these people, and maybe it was best to keep to myself, but the hippies convinced me it was better not to be alone, especially in a storm like this.

The tents were set up in a field below mission hill, all of them bright white. All the people were dressed in white as well, although there was no obvious reason for this. It occurred to me that when the snow came we'd all be camouflaged, invisible to any predatory eye, though whether this was intentional or not, there is no way to know.

I was shown to my tent, which was indeed very nice, and put on my warm white clothes. I then went out to wander among the people in the field. All of them were strangers, and as usual I was feeling shy. Starting conversations has never been my strong point.

After making a few nodding acquaintances, I was surprised to be introduced to someone I already knew, a woman named Lori.

Stop. Wait a moment. You'll have to bear with me because here I must digress. It's not enough to just say Lori. There is a whole tale behind Lori. Well, for me, there is a tale behind Lori. For her, I do not figure into her story much, if at all.

It's the curse of being the one who remembers.

I met Lori in second grade. Probably I don't even have to describe her, because there is a Lori in every school, every class, most likely. Think back to your own schoolroom, or your children's schoolroom, and you'll see.

These days they call such girls "natural leaders" or somesuch, but to me at age 7, it was an ineffable power, a mysterious ability to control the social order simply by existing. Well, being the prettiest girl with the best grades and the nicest clothes helped, but even if I could see some of the mechanism, I couldn't see all of it. Whatever quality it was she had, I didn't have it, and I knew it.

This fascinated me.

I don't recall envying her so fiercely at first, but soon it was gnawing at my very soul. The searing pain of comparing oneself to others and coming up short.

Our characters were very different, Lori and I, but being a child I tended to see this in simple material terms. The school took a dim view of classism, but not so my family. 'Her parents are rich," my brother said, bluntly. "You can never be like her."

The type of things Lori owned that I could never have - her snoopy watch, satin jacket, spotless Keds and ribbon barrettes among them - took on even greater significance after that. And then there was the thing that I envied most of all, the point around which all my envy had begun to coalesce...her Luv It jeans.

Luv Its were the skinny, straight-legged jeans worn by the popular girls in school. Usually they had puffy satin appliques on the pockets, in all sorts of designs: hearts, stars, peaches, lipstick, ice cream sundaes like the ad above. Sometimes the less popular girls would wear cheap knock-offs but you could always tell. That little Luv It tag (with the red heart with a bite out of it) conferred great social capital in that time and place.

Having spent spent many hours sitting at my desk behind Lori's, staring at the row of satin hearts on her pocket, it was clear to me that I needed whatever power those jeans could manifest. If there was no way to swap myself out and live another person's life, it seemed the jeans might be the next best thing.

My mother nearly did a spit-take when I told her how much they cost. "24 dollars!" she shouted, appalled. "you must be crazy." It was the same conversation many unpopular girls were having that year.

I did eventually get a pair of Luv Its, though I'd have to wait until the Christmas I was 9. They had 4 stars on each pocket, like so:

I adored them, don't get me wrong, but the moment I put them on, I understood that I would only ever be an impostor. The jeans did not confer Lori-ness. I was still just a nobody wearing Lori's jeans.

...

After changing schools, I didn't see Lori again until we took driver's ed together the year we were 15. By then, Lori was busy doing the sort of things that upper-middle class girls do to prepare for the future. Rainbow Girls, Junior League, twirling lessons - you know the drill. By that time, I was modelling for a punk rock hair salon, so it was obvious to anyone with eyes that we were on different life paths. Lori would chair committees and be president of the PTA, and I would be...god only knew.

But still. I remember standing outside the temp trailer, listening to her talk about Days Of Our Lives when a sort of shudder went through me. All that potential, all of that golden light, channeled into being perfectly, sensibly and competently dull.

Perhaps that's too harsh. I'm sure people who do such things get something out of it, that there must be some worthy achievement there. It's just that I've never understood it. Garden clubs, museum boards and the like always seem to be filled with well-dressed ladies with manicured, venomous claws. But then, since that elementary school experience, social maneuvering has always left me cold.

Anyway, it does seem Lori's life has turned out just as she planned. I haven't seen her in years, but one hears things, you know. Married with 2.5 children and dog. A lovely home in a tony suburb. President of the parish council and indeed, the PTA.

So you can imagine she was the last person I'd expect to turn up among a bunch of hippies in my dream. Dream? Oh, yes, that dream I was telling you about....

I shook the now grown-up Lori's hand and said "I don't know if you remember me." She said, "oh, of course I do" and I replied "well, we have known each other since the age of 7."

Just then, though, my hand began to bleed, ghastly red dripping all over our clean white clothes. I apologized, although I couldn't quite explain it. "It's no problem" Lori was saying, but by then I had noticed that the blood had run into the lines of my palm - the left palm, the lines that mark the potential with which you were born.

That's when I woke up.

...

I still don't know what it means, though the blood in my fate lines is a probably a clue. But it seems awfully late in the day to mourn something that I never was. I've long ago given up the poisonous  envy that marred my childhood, if that was the point.Then again, perhaps I'd suddenly become stigmatic, which would mean something else entirely. And just what was Lori doing there, anyway? Unless the dream was saying that the storm we were waiting for would come for us all, junior leaguers and hippies alike.

It remains to be seen. I'm keeping my eyes open.

*It would be disingenuous to say I never had any of the things in the link above. I did manage to accumulate many of those kinds of things but it was later, after my teachers started saying I looked like Brooke Shields and suddenly out of nowhere I had some value.

Black Witch Moth

The black witch moth likes to lurk in dark doorways at night. In Mexico, its appearance is seen as an omen of death, but in the United States, it's more often a sign that money is coming. In Jamaica. it is called the duppy bat, and is the embodiment of a lost or restless soul. 

Whatever meaning you might give it, if you should startle one on your way home in the dark, it can give you quite a fright. 

Legend of the Easter Fires

The Easter Fires of Fredericksburg, Texas are said to originate in local history, but any pagan can see shades of the Beltane tradition of old.

Some People Say...

...a little tiny whirlwind of dust on the ground is a sign of a ghost's passing.

~Maria Leach, The Thing at the Foot of the Bed