June 18th, 2014
Dear Sean, I had a dream while I was taking a siesta today. I was writing a poem when a little flame spoke to me. Although it was a few feet away in the fireplace, its voice reached me as almost uncomfortable warmth in my ear.
“I’m going out!” it said, and begged me to feed it something before it starved to death.
“I don’t have anything,” I said, but I really did worry for it.
“That paper, in your hand. I can eat that.”
“But it’s my poem!”
“I’m dying! Hurry!”
Panicking, I threw my fresh-writ poem to the fire.
“It’s not enough, said the little flame, who had flared for a bit was small and weak again. “Can I have the rest?”
I held a notebook full of poems, it seemed. “I can’t. All my poems…”
“You wrote them before, you can write them again,” it reasoned. I wasn’t sure about this at all. “But when I go out I’m gone forever!” So I agreed, tore out the poems and fed the fire, despite my regret all the writing.
I didn’t even know what any of them were about, and I thought I’d never be able to write them again.
“More,” the flame demanded, though it was almost a proper fire at this point. Looking around the room now I saw lots of things that would burn, things I hadn’t seen before. Notebooks all over the place. It didn’t seem as difficult this time to throw them whole into the fire. I could feel the heat now, burning the whole of my face.
Then someone came into a room, a man, furious, screaming at me that I’d ruined him, that I’d burned all of his work.
“No, they were my poems,” I told him, but even as I said it, I was afraid that they hadn’t been. I couldn’t remember what they were about after all, nor did I have any memory of writing them other than the one I’d burnt first, the one I’d been writing when the fire first spoke. So the man kept shouting at me that I’d ruined him, and the fire wasn’t speaking anymore, wouldn’t back me up, just acted like a normal fire that was now getting really hot and out of control.
I woke up before finding out what happened, if the room burned down or if the man tried to get revenge. The fire starting out in the ear was undoubtedly the result of the sun coming through the window where I slept, which would have reached my ear first then moved across my face as time went on, spreading to the rest of my face. The other parts of the dream, however, I don’t understand.
This is not the first dream I’ve had recently about writing poetry, but all the others before this have been normal. Giving poems to writer friends for feedback (and them telling me “eh… keep trying.”) I thought perhaps this was my subconscious trying to give me a not so subtle hint, but now I don’t know.
Apparently I needn’t have worried about not having anything to update you with aside from the state of my sunburns (none, as yet.) The very evening after I finished your last letter, some strangers broke into the buffalo paddock and were trying to get at our beasts. B. had gone to the stables to feed the rabbits (there are several, but I’ve only named the two that allow me to pet them: Somerset and Maughm.) She had been gone for a bit so I went down the road to check on her and found her, standing with her arms crossed, surrounded by three people who drove an old red car.
The ringleader I heard before I saw, him speaking very crude German. In my best, “What’s all this then,” police officer voice, I asked them what they are doing, in English.
“Oh. English, English.” He says. “Maybe no problem.”
“Oh, maybe BIG problem, I said, and turned to B. “What’s up?” I asked.
She was clearly on guard and confused.
“What’s up?” he repeats, laughing, trying to make fun of me.
“What are you doing here?” The group look around. Ringleader is trying to laugh it off. (At this stage, I didn’t know that he’d actually been caught in the paddock. Before he left, M. said that he thought people were stealing hay from the barn, so I thought this is what had been happening.)
The woman looks annoyed, not with me but with the man who is trying to laugh his way out of this. I made a decision. “Big problem,” I told him, and jerked me thumb at the road. They got in the car and left, and we called M. and L. to find out if we hadn’t just rudely kicked out some of their friends.
We hadn’t.
No idea who they were. That was good; I would have hated to have wasted my best John Wayne impression for nothing. There is something satisfying in running people off. That’s twice now. There’s something empowering in it. But that sort of thing makes me sound like a bully, so I’ll stop.
We didn’t even make it back to the house before another drama occurred. I won’t bore you with the details, because I realise it’s probably not as interesting to you as it is to me, so I’ll sum up. I’ve mentioned Leyla, the wounded mare who stays in a little paddock beside the house at night. Someone, M. suspects P__ovich (it’s his land, he thinks he can do whatever he wants with it”), had tied up a strange horse in her paddock. We heard the whinnying and neighing and ran over. The two beasts were kicking at each other. A kick to her belly is the last thing she needs, with that wound. I separated them, in the end.
The following day the stallion ran to the neighbouring farm to insinuate himself with the mares there. So I had to run and find him and bring him back. But, when I went out there, searched the large field and the neighbour’s field, no stallion. Found him in the end, just left of the apple tree near the rest of our herd. I’d say it was a lot of trouble for nothing, but it was actually a very scenic walk, one I wouldn’t have taken otherwise. I don’t regret wandering the afternoon away.
My forefinger on my right hand is stained a purple/blue. The romantic in me likes to pretend it’s ink stains, from all that writing I supposedly do (with fountain pen, or better yet, a quill) but in reality it’s the antibiotic I have to get into Leyla’s wound, which gapes in her underbelly and oozes and drips large quantities of yellow pus.
My stomach just growled. Either something is very wrong with me or I didn’t eat enough at breakfast.
I’ve just resigned myself to being filthy until September. Still haven’t showered, but neither has anyone else. Either I’ve stopped stinking, or I’ve stopped smelling the stink. I’m pretty sure my room smells like horse. I really should leave my shoes outside. Perhaps today or tomorrow I can convince B. to go to the river Tisa for a swim.
I used a scythe yesterday. I’m supposed to clear Leyla’s paddock if I want. I have no idea why I thought they had a lawn mower, or a tractor mower, when we get our drinking water from a well and the facilities are just an outhouse. In any case, I said I’d try to clear the field and was handed a scythe.
Such a wicked looking tool, or maybe that’s just because one associates it with the grim reaper. If he uses his scythe on people they way I do on tall weeds… that makes him all the more terrifying. I always imagined death as a quiet, stately fellow who gathers people up like a gentle shepherd, and the scythe is just a glorified walking stick. To think of the grim reaper actually reaping… Brrr… Heebie jeebies.
But as I was trying to mow the field I thought of Levin and his peasants. He wasn’t the best, and many times he got tired, but he stuck with it the entre time. But I’m not a Levin, more’s the pity. I didn’t last as long nor did I reach his level of zen whilst I was working. Maybe this was because of the unevenness of my field, and the amount of weeds and other plants that made uniform cutting, that made finding a rhythm, impossible. But my mind did go blank for a time. I thought of nothing but mowing that field. My imagination didn’t wander too far, as it’s wont to do. No further than Levin.
Pitchforks and scythes. I feel I could be quite lethal with farm equipment by the end of the summer. Or ready, at least, for a peasant revolt.
The gashes on my hand and knee are healing niceish. And I’ve just received another email about Berlin’s War edits. Fills me with shame, the amount of work I’m not doing. Well, I’m doing plenty of work but none in a literary or academic nature. (I originally wrote, but none in my field, which I had to change because it was precariously close to a pun. Ignominious sneaks.)
We (jerry-)rigged a short of shelter for the firewood yesterday, as it looked like rain. I feel more and more like Slim Chance the cowboy every day; I have an entourage of dogs.
My favourite isn’t even our dog, but a shepherd’s dog who follows me around when I’m out.
I was with the horses last night (horses, not buffalo, are my main responsibility. They are wild Hutzl horses.) I was with them, sitting on a stump on the edge of the river, when one of Igor’s bulls spots me and approaches, head down. I didn’t know if he was curious or angry, but I had nowhere to go but backward and down (brings me back to my great tumble down in the Arbuckle mountains, or was it the Wichitas?, after being set upon by a bison. I wonder if this will be a recurring theme in my life.) In any case, Sikan (which means Gypsy in the old local dialect that the villagers speak, which is partly Hungarian, partly Ukrainian, partly something else entirely) runs at the beast, places himself in front of me and snarls and barks and runs the bull off. He knew he was a hero too, because he came trotting, no, galumphing back, jumped right in my lap and started licking my face demanding his reward of pets and belly rubs for saving me. I happily obliged.
The other dogs, Leika and Emily, are officially attached to the farm, but another dog has appeared, and follows me everywhere. B. has named her Ivanka (it was Ivan before we realised it was a girl.) I watched her eat a dead bird today. My first impulse was to stop her, as I’d be horrified if one of our dogs back home did that. But this is how stray/wild dogs survive. Who am I to say no to the poor beast’s meal? I don’t feed her, so I shouldn’t stop her feeding herself.
Finally finished Elegance of the Hedgehog (which mentions Levin as well, and other situations in Anna Karenina) recommended to me ages ago by Britni Halbert. No, Britni Brecheen. (Well, she was Halbert at the time.) I put things on my to-read list and I eventually get around to them, even if it’s a few years later.
Now reading Kafka’s The Trial. I won’t give my opinion yet; I’m sure it will sound ignorant anyway.
June 24th We have a neighbour, Igor, who is perpetually grumpy, but actually very kind and helpful. He does favours for us and is always ready to lend a hand, with a frown. I only tell you about him because he smiled at me yesterday. Granted, I think it was my stupidity that amused him, as he speaks not a word of English or German and as yet, my Ukrainian is very limited.
I came across him at the back of the stable and he asked me a question. No idea what he was saying, so I smiled stupidly at him and shrugged. He did it again, and got the same response from me. Then he smiled, actually smiled, and said. “Good. Okay,” (words that are in my Ukrainian word bank) and went off again.
I know he was laughing at me, but the fact he wasn’t grumping made it worth it.
Sikan (Gypsy) my favourite dog, the one that rescued me from that bull last week is nowhere to be seen today. Yesterday there was an odd canine cry and everyone in the house rushed out to see. He was lying in the street, teeth bared strained, in obvious pain and distress.
At first I, like everyone else, though he’d been attacked. After a moment I remembered, and saw Peter in the road instead of Gypsy.
“He’s having a seizure,” I said. “We just have to wait until it’s over.”
And it was in another minute. I told them he was probably epileptic, but I’d never seen him have a fit before. Sikan tried to get up and run away, but his back legs weren’t working, so he just flopped back down and panted.
Poor thing.
I sat with him and petted him until he was well enough to drink and come sleep on the porch. I left for some work and haven’t seen him since. Though B. said she saw him having another fit not even an hour later. The shepherd has a new dog, looks like one of Sikan’s sons. This upsets me greatly. I wonder if my friend hadn’t taken a blow to the head, and wasn’t epileptic at all. I fear he’s lying dead somewhere, all alone.
When I can walk again, I’ll have a look around the territory for him.
Surely I shouldn’t end the letter here, on such a sad note, but I don’t know what else to say.
Well, I suppose I could tell you about Ina, the wild mare whom I’ve been assigned to try to tame. I’ve made progress. She lets me approach and pet her, something she allows no one else to do. Attempting to ride her worked really well, except when her baby ran away (a colt who is more a teenager than a baby.) She panicked and ran after him, throwing me off quite neatly. That wasn’t so bad. No broken bones, only bruises and scrapes. (To be honest I’m just glad she didn’t throw me into the nearby beehives.)
I got her and her baby back, and continued riding. At the end, when we were almost at the stables, silly baby runs away again but this time it was as I was getting off Ina. She turned around quickly and knocked me over with her hind legs and proceeded to trample my feet, dancing on my left foot and landing hard on my right heel. At first I thought the heel was the worse off, as she’d put a lot of weight on it. But it’s only bruised on the inside, and there’s lots of meat and one strong unbroken bone beneath.
It’s the left foot, the lighter injury, which seems to be worse off. She landed right on top, with nothing but my shoe between her hoof and my ickle bonesies. I think two might be fractured (though I haven’t told them that. They felt guilty enough, like they personally stomped all over me. I don’t want them to feel bad, or that my tarsals are too delicate for the work.) There was no ice in the house to put on my rapidly swelling feet.
I had to use cheese.
Your limpy sister,
~K
P.S. This happened.
