I sometimes wonder why I continue to write and post dispatches. No one reads them, in part because they’re no longer posted in a timely fashion. I’m not too busy to write them, but Pete’s too busy to post them. He, after all, is the one with grant writing expertise and a real, full-time job.

I write them out of good habit. My mentor, Donald Murray, was a compositionist who is decomposing. He used to say, “never a day without a line,” or “nulla dies sine linea.” And so, in memory of him, I write 500 words

Still winter here

a day, each day, every day. If you are reading this on a computer screen, then my hand-written draft made it onto the edge of cyberspace. Addressing a “you” here means that I just negated in this second paragraph what I said in the first paragraph, which is that no one is reading my dispatches.

Writing dispatches is sort of like yelling when you stub your big toe and no one is around. No one appears and empathizes. So you yell louder, to no avail. Me, I see the toe isn’t broken and return to writing.

I began writing dispatches in January, 2012. That’s 11 times 365. That’s 4, 915 pages, at least. My dispatch is 11 years old, old enough to tie her shoes, sass me back, and chew gum, all at the same time.

I was without internet service all day today. And my cell phone is on the other side of town. I glanced at my email messages at the Meeting House where there is Wi Fi. I’ve always wondered if there’s a connection to be made between Wi Fi and Hi Fi, the latter being high fidelity. High fidelity defined: above average allegiance to one’s mate.

I got a message from a woman named Carol who wrote that she really enjoyed reading a piece I wrote entitled “Eating Crow.” (I should have also written one entitled “Eating Raven.”) I do not remember writing “Eating Crow,” at all. Carol, who I think lives in Colorado is considering getting an Icelandic horse and had been checking out the For Sale Dream Horse website. Now, coincidently, I’d been checking out this site periodically since Tinni died. This, just in case a steady eddy gelding like Tinni materialized. So far, no such luck.

Carol said that I sounded very confident. I do wonder what ethos I’m projecting because I am anything but confident. I didn’t say this to her because I didn’t want to dispel her notion. Imagine it, me confident. I’m as angst ridden as a wet sponge.

I wrote her back, and in my message leapt into story-telling mode, telling her about Raudi’s behavior yesterday and Raudi’s behavior today. Yesterday she was pissy about the prospect of being examined and having her teeth floated. Today she was a most amazing riding horse. We went up and down Murphy, doing walk-trot transitions then on the final uphill stretch, walk-trot-canter transitions. And she held still when a grouse hen appeared on a roadside snow berm.

I forgot that I didn’t need Internet service to type this in. Oh happy day, at least I can keep on writing.

Next: 88. March 30, 2023: Kudos to Pete