Land, Lots of Land Under Starry Skies Above

This is going to be one of those woo-woo shit kinds of posts, so if you don’t like those or if you should be at church anyway, you might want to skip.

I remain, as ever, a hopeful polytheist.  I don’t know how one knows for certain that she isn’t just telling herself some stories that allow her to feel like she’s connected into some universal flow, but aren’t actually true.  But I still choose to throw my lot in with the stories and the characters, in every sense of the word, that we find there.

And, I have to say that two things make me feel as if it’s not just my brain making stories up to tell me so that I can sleep at night.  One is the easily refutable just that it feels real to me and that my life has… not exactly improved… let’s not say that.  Let’s say that it has become infinitely easier for me to live now that I’ve settled into the beliefs I’ve settled into.

For me, and I would guess for many people, Christianity is like a scratchy sweater.  Many folks find they can do without sweaters all together.  I have found a sweater that fits me.

But the second is that when I go to my ancestors for advice and guidance, they often tell me things that make no sense to me or are things I don’t particularly want to hear, things I find confusing or frightening.  If I were telling myself a story, I feel like I know the kinds of stories about me I’d want to hear.

And you, my friends, have been reading me long enough to know the kinds of stories I’d like to tell about myself to myself–that I’m desireable and desired by everyone, that I will never struggle, that I deserve good things, etc. etc. etc.

So, anyway, yesterday I was all out of sorts, all day, just pissed and depressed about the house thing, convinced that every house in my price range is going to have some problems so severe as to render them unbuyable by me.

Which, you know, pisses me off.  Having my own house is a right goal, I thought/think.  The Old Man recommends it.  Economists recommend it.  I want it.  Etc.  So, why does my Fortune on the house-hunting thing seem so slightly off?

I went Over to complain.  Why aren’t my Folks helping this thing happen?

I got laughed at.

Maybe I should have tried to stick with immediate family, but they’re all, with the exception of my Uncle B., who is too curious about how it All works to stay put, off with the rest of the Christians and my Uncle B. seems to feel that things are going how they should.  He also lets his dog sit at the family table, so… take that for what it’s worth.  In the afterlife, my folks are still spoiling their pets.

But, so, I went higher up the food chain, to Women who have homes themselves–Fensalir, Sokkvabekk, Folkvangr, Thrymheim, and on.

And I sat with one of them, who wasn’t too busy to see me, and they said that, yes, they’d heard of my strange quest to own a house.  Did I not know that houses burn down?  That they crumble?  That they can be destroyed and some other building set in its place?

It is not about the house.  It is about the land.

Land is. Houses come and go.  Land is.

When I came back, I was all like “What the hell?  Land?  Duh, I’m going to have some land if I have a house.”  But then I look at the places these Women live again–Land of Uproar, Folk-plain, Sunken-benches, Marsh Hall–and each place is a place.  It’s not just a building, but it is about the land as well.

I may not have been considerate enough of that, as of yet.

The Chicken Coop

The reason I find the ongoing saga of the chicken coop so hilarious is that Mack, when he sets his mind to something, is all about that thing, and he tends to finish what he starts.  He’s like a force of nature whirling through the landscape.  For instance, the porch.  One day, he told me he was going out to stain the porch and a week and a half later, it was roofed in.

So, for the chicken coop to remain incomplete for as long as it’s remained incomplete, you know it’s got to mean that two ideas weigh equally heavy on Mack’s mind.  His desire for chickens is counterbalanced by his desire to not bring coyotes that close to his house.

I, too, am balanced by two competing desires.  I would like to see the chicken coop complete, if only so that I can go to his house and see chickens (I’m hoping he can be convinced to raise some cool variety like the Wyanodette or the Iowa Blue).  But I also like seeing it incomplete, because it tickles me to see it there like a testament to a decisive man’s indecision.

So, I have been “aiding” in the decision making process by suggesting alternatives–getting a sabretooth tiger to guard the flock, getting a billy goat to guard the flock, teaching the chickens how to handle a gun–you know, helpful ideas.

In that spirit, I bring you this solution.