Rain Anyone?

You might know that today when it looked like rain all day, that would be the day the clothes dryer decided to make a noise like an airplane taking off, so I ended up hanging one load in the basement and the other one on the outside clothesline in the fresh breeze. Now it has really cooled off and I think it'll rain soon, so I just got finished taking in the outside laundry and squeezing it onto the basement lines. The repair guy comes on Thursday. I guess we can't complain; we bought the dryer in January 1977 right after we were married. The only repair I can remember is replacing the heating element about 15 years ago. It's hideous, it's avocado, but it's not dead yet.

I bought a book at a conference in Madison last winter, The Daily Writer by Fred White; it's a collection of "366 meditations to cultivate a productive and meaningful writing life." It's been sitting on my nightstand since last March and I open it every once in a while, but for some reason I packed it along to Lexington weekend before last (already?) and have started reading each day's entry. Today's really got me; it's about inspiration, about not waiting for it to arrive, but actively pursuing it so that when the Muse strikes your writing muscles are all limber and ready to rock and roll. Combined with the beautiful Arapaho Indian ceremonial dress that is the art for the day, I leaped into the page with both feet. I'm happy with what I wrote today and plan to work on this one again soon.

October 20--Arapaho Indian, "Ghost Dance" Dress with painted design of birds, turtle, and stars. Serena reached out one finger to touch the dress. She was drawn to it like a moth to a flame. The red skirt sprinkled with stars glittered at her. She thought of how the fringe down the sides and at the hem would feel as the dancer moved, like wings lifting her as the music of the drums and the high singing drove the bodies on around the ceremonial fire. Serena had studied Native American culture in college anthro classes but it had always been so dry, so far removed from the reality of this dress. She tugged on her white cotton conservator's gloves and bent over the Arapaho dress spread on the table before her. She hefted the long green fringe that hung from the short sleeves that grew from the star-strewn blue yoke. The fringe was the same green as the crescent moon that hung like a cat's grin below the neck. She smoothed out the fabric to admire the four ravens soaring up the dress into the starry sky, leaving the single turtle to trail behind them. She was most intrigued by the red-robed figure of a man posed below the moon. Dressed like a Jesuit in his long dress, one hand holding a branch and the other a scythe, a pair of crosses floated alongside him marking his connection to the Christian God. She carefully turned the dress inside out and was struck by the sweat stains under the arms and on the bodice. Suddenly the scholar in her awakened to the real live people who had worn this dress at ceremonies over the years. Serena saw the careworn hands of a grandmother handing the dress to a granddaughter who had just arrived at the border of womanhood. All of the theories and speculation about Native cultures that she had studied fell away in the face of the reality that she hadn't been studying a culture, these had been real flesh and blood people with loves and hates, families and loved ones, that were trying to fit into their society just as she was in hers.

Finally my anthropology minor is going to pay off.
--Barbara