I am an old woman

Angel From Montgomery

Bonnie Raitt

I am an old woman

named after my mother

an old man is another

child who's grown old

If dreams were thunder

lightning was desire

this old house would've

burned downa long time ago

[Chorus:]

Make me an angel

That flies from montgomery

Make me a poster

Of an old rodeo

Just give me one thing

That i can hold on to

To believe in this livin'

Is just a hard way to go

When i was a young girl

I had me a cowboy

It wasn't much to look at

It was a free ramblin' man

There was a long time

No matter how i tried

The years they just rolled by

Like a broken down dance

[Chorus]

There's flies in the kitchen

I can hear them there buzzin'

And i ain't done nothing since i woke up today

But how the hell can a person

Go on to work in the morning

To come home in the evening

And have nothing to say

Bonnie Raitt has been singing to my soul since we were much younger woman. I think about this song a lot as I am driving behind the dandelion colored wagon or sitting atop the futon inside the vardo. I am that old woman now, and if you know what those lyrics are really about then I suspect you are living a life that is filling up to over-flowing.

I am back in a town where I used to drive the streets as a very young woman, things including the streets have changed a bit or a barrell like the old street that led to the Lowell-district and the Snohomish River Road. When I lived not far from where Pete and I are now encamped, I knew the streets and could get around with the internal map locked in. But, I am an old woman now with a brain and body that are not only aged but affected by the rearranging toxics of a chemicalized world. My brain and my immune system have lost some of their flexibility plus the streets have been changed. Take that to the stock pot and you get a whole different sort of soup, I gotta tell you.

Our first night's sleep in the new parking spot around the back of our friends' home overlooks the Port of Everett, the Weyerhauser mill and the Naval Base. The train tracks run below us and big bright lights remain lit all night. To say we are in another whirl while being on Planet Earth you would have to know all the other whirls we have been in the years since multiple chemical sensitivities have made their marks upon us. We slept rough and I covered up some of the windows to minimize the glaze of the city's need to be lit. Today Pete and I hunted down pairs of ear plugs to wear (inside and outside the vardo). Quiet nights of dark sky sleep on The Ledge were sauves of healing and we never took those hours for granted, appreciating every one of them, every night. Sleep does not store up in the body or mind, I think a being needs sleep regularly to heal. That is in the perfectly balanced world we would have that birthright.

This old woman and old man will be testing their ability to adjust without wearing down the reserves we have accumulated during those seven months on The Ledge. How much does a 700 miles of hard driving and moving about tap away at that reserve? With luck and old people wisdom I pray that Angel from Montgomery soothes us as we make our way to through this return to Everett where city living is filled with challenges..."just give me one thing that i can hold on to ... to believe in this livin is just a hard way to go ..."

Photo Credit: mahboudian.googlepages.com/old-woman.jpg