Little Miss likes to be by grandma
all the time
up my ----
right behind me
asking questions
wanting me to look at this
and look at what I did
yesterday she wanted to draw
took out a piece of watercolor paper from the closet
and began drawing
then went on to use my computer paper
she's such a writer
and an artist
I hope she uses it all
joy

Today my mother is 81, and my daughter is bringing Finn over to have a cupcake with her.
And tomorrow the other two are coming in from California. I think my heart can't stretch so far...so much joy filling it!   My daughter is doing geneology of the family, and I think she wants to pick my mother's brain for info....get the story stuff.  I wonder what I'll learn that I didn't know. It should be fun.
This week my whole family will be together. Whole...what a wonderful word...family....wonderful too.
Loving enough to let them all go and live their own lives as they wish
and loving enough to know that when they are gathered together
give thanks for it all.

Sitting with the gray hairs

Yesterday,spent the day with my mom,
watched a movie at the library.
A lot of her friends were there -
she was beaming,
me being there.
You can't buy that with any gold

 "The Portuguese call it saudade:

a longing for something so indefinate as to be indefinable,

love affairs,

miseries of life,

the way things were,

people already dead,

those who left and the ocean that tossed them on the shores of a different land-

All things born of the soul

that can only be felt."

-Anthony De Sa (Barnacle Love)

Sometimes it's hard to shake off gloom. Especailly when it unfolds daily before me on the TV and radio. The suffering in Japan is infecting me with tremendous sadness, frozen in reflection. Why?

 I just let myself feel it. But the fact that now the bodies are showing up, I imagine all those families,the babies and children,all those lovers,all those beautiful lives gone.
I have donated, I have prayed, I have spent time in meditation.
but still a malaise

But yesterday a little girl at the grocery store was a circle of light to me.
She looked over at me while I was feeling the tomatoes and just smiled,
smiled a wide toothy smile and said "Hi"
no awareness of sadness,just friendliness
Her mother quickly pulled her away apologizing.
For what? what? I thought
for being a beacon on light in my dreary afloat being?
To me she was...all brightness and cheer
This little act of this little girl
lifted me so much I came home lifted up
what more could I ask for


 Hope is in the world
in the most ordinary of places
We are sent what we need
when we least expect it ,as they say
 I bought myself 2 oxalis...shamrocks some call them
joy in pots with little pink flowers instead of the ordinary white

Today while I'm out I will make it a point to smile
with the confidence of a child....
maybe I'll be a beacon of hope to another kindred soul
who suffers under the weight of all this tragic news
may it be so

sunday thought

writing with friends day

Today I will dance with shadows,
steal from a deep place that will
not give up its store
Holds onto wounds
Has weapons as ancient
as the dawn of man
But I heard the flute in the stillness
calling me to come down
bear witness
bring light

Minced, Chopped or Crushed, Magpie Tale #56

Magpie Tale # 56
http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Rub garlic on yourself

when you go to battle

Devour it

for speed,strength,courage and endurance

For it is bound to Mars and fire

Carry it over water

you will not drown

Place it in doorways

to ward off illness

and evil,werewolves and vampires

Place it under the pillows of your children

to protect them while they sleep

It can be sweet or assertive

depends on how you cook it

which ever way you like it

or eat it raw

Buy it firm,plump

Choose heavy heads with tight unbroken papery skins

heavier is better

Avoid dried out ones, ones with soft spots or mold

Green shoots are a sign of age

Resist prechopped, it has lost much of its power

but rather seperate a clove

  break the skin by

placing it on a cutting board and covering it

with the flat side of a chef's knife

push with just enough pressure to split the skin

remove the germ,the sprout in the center

Crush it for raw or quickly cooked garlic

Mince for pasta sauce,sauteed vegetables

Roughly chop for long cooking stews

every which way for good health and family meals

But did you know-?

...Legend says that when Satan was expelled from Eden,

 garlic and onion appeared in his footsteps

...Allium Sativum & Allium Cepa...

Evil becoming good for us.

My Blood, Microfiction #73

microfiction writing prompt...write something using only 140 characters or less

From Susan at, http://www.stonyriver.ie/

 

I inherited the tintype. It's said that he died in the Civil War,

before the Great War that ended all wars.  Now,my unknown soldier.

                                          -130-



Sunday haiku

nest on window ledge
new life stirs inside blue eggs
and in beholder

Haiku on Saturday

little mighty feet
 ant on hydrangea petal
no fret of his path

Manna of Joy

 I have partaken

of God's bread

manna from heaven

I was hungry

frightened

lost

alone

lonely

How could this be

in the midst of all this bounty?

It is the human condition

and I am very human

My will free

So I kept walking

and the soles of feet bled

looking for it

And I said to the sun

Why do you not warm me

on this winter day?

And the moon

What are you smiling at?

Can't you see I'm seperated

from where I want to be?

Then a wee small breeze

blew through the trees

like the touch of wings

and dropped feathers

in my hair so light

and soft

and I felt joy

then it happened

this manna

 

 

Well,I did

Sometimes when I'm feeling so good, I sing
I have my favorites
and they are very varied
Today, this one kept running through my head
I first heard it in the movie, Lady in White,
a ghost story...the ghost puts this record on
So today this is the song that I sang and sang and sang
while making beds,cooking dinner,before American Idol
This version is song by Al Bowlly I believe around 1933
But who knows, tomorrow I may be singing, I Want to Know What Love Is

Did you ever see a dream walking?
Well I did
Did you ever hear a dream talking?
well I did

Did you ever have a dream thrill you
with    "Will you be mine?"
Oh it's so grand
        and it's too divine

Did you ever see a dream dancing?
Well I did
And did you ever see a dream romancing?
Well I did

Did you ever see heaven   right in your arms
saying,"I love you, I do!"
Well the dream that was walking
and the dream that was taling
and the heaven in my arms was you

Sleep Naked

Thanks to all my dear blogger friends who weathered my
running of the mouth yesterday.

I truly was a rock in the tumbler.
Now the hard edges are all smoothed out,revealing the beauty and texture
of what waited exposure.
So many wonderful comments. I hope you who have commented
check out my comments to you,for even in that I learned
new things about my self and my direction

M.Heart, of http://secretnotebookswildpages.blogspot.com/
hit my guitar string just right, got me thinking
Yes, manifesting positive
attracting power and positivity

M.Heart knows about struggle,obstacles,healing,love and doubt
she knows the journey of life is about transition.
When she speaks, I listen.
She suggested to me that I needn't worry about
the missed class opportunity, if it comes to that, but rather to be open to something
more appropriate coming around the corner
"Life," she says,"has a way of working things out like that."

The working title of one of the books I have been working on,
....struggling through, is, Sleep Naked
It's sort of a memoir. I have lots to say about my journey thus far.
But the self exposure is agony...I chicken out all the time.
Guess that book is not ready yet... inside of me.
But she got me thinking
about another answer from the universe that happened two nights ago.
And when M wrote about something just around the corner,
I knew what it was,
 Not my, Sleep Naked book
Not the ghost/witch story I'm working through (oh the research)
No, it was something that came to me as I was talking to my dying friend the other night,
...a remarkable, wonderous, woman.
As we spoke about hospice, I told her how taking care of my dying aunt
had a profound effect on me. My aunt was virtually a bag lady.
But her journey at the end of her life was a miracle.
It wasn't easy bringing her and her cat into my home,
taking care of her 24/7. I still had a child in school .
But I loved her.

That's the story I am going to be working on.
thank you all, thank you M.
for pointing the way to receiving
yet another answer
And maybe it's the book I'll never submit anywhere,
but I think it is one I need to write..maybe part of the clutter
still there.....freeing me to really Sleep Naked

Breakfast with Buddha and Caprese Salad

I believe that answers come
when you least expect them
and not in the ways you expect them.
My husband says I have been talking my head off at night
The only dream I can remember is horrifying..warning!
I dreamed  I spit out a large larva

Yesterda,y I had my makeup done at the Dior counter
with one of their NY makeup artists.
It started well.....he noticed me walking in
kept looking at me...then said he knew, he knew me
Another woman was working on my foundation ( I know I have just lost all of my men readers)
But he came by and said he would finish my eyes
When he finally got to me, he asked me if I was a writer or an artist.
This shocked me, but he said  "I just knew it"
I won't bother you too much more about the details..except for this one
....when teaching me how to make my eyes stand out he said..A woman in her forties
should do this and that......I just about fainted....I'm 60, I told him
And you know what, despite what my husband says...I know he meant it....he was in disbelief
I do have good skin, few wrinkles and I dress like a woman ( okay you few remaining men, you know what I mean?)
Well, I left that place stinging like a bee and floating like a butterfly.....bring it on world
The feeling lasted all night ,all today..now why am I telling you this? There is a reason.

When I walked into Macy's and saw all those young women getting their makeup done, I nearly turned around and went home. Who are you kidding, I asked myself.  Crossroad. Well, I straightened up my posture and put myself right in it. It was the best hour and a half I have spent in a long time. He even got me to confess that I would love to do improv....where did that come from?   We were all having a great time....it was an infusion of joy and energy. 
Unlike today when I was at the library getting the book ,Breakfast with Buddha,for my bookies group.
I stopped into the book sale room before leaving and there right on the shelf was The Great Gatsby, for a dollar...hardbound.  If I decide to go to Door County this summer for the writer's workshop, this is the author we will be studying. I would have to submit work. He knows me. I haven't gotten very far in my novel or collection of short stories or have a complete chapbook ready.....so I had been wavering about whether to go. Boom....class closed..I'm on the waiting list.   There are other reasons why I don't want to go. I'm a coward in this regard....regressing.
But when I saw Gatsby on the shelf right in front of me......ANSWER.

A young woman began talking to me in the middle of this "universe and me" conversation. She actually used F words repeatedly, telling me her saga about unemployment and losing her condo and getting rifffed off her teaching job....bastards all of them she said. I don't even want a F'n teaching job anymore....politics....She went on for about 8 mnutes bending my ear with the most disgusting attitude I have heard in a long time.  Blaming everyone ...nasty woman. They did the right thing riffing this one....nuts and miserable....and I think it is her life's story...blame.
I left the library feeling like a drained bee and sinking butterfly.......some people can do that to you.
I took myself to lunch, Buddha book in hand and began reading.
Ah ,a good book, so far and in first person (my favorite)....first chapter touched me emotionally, hit a truth.

And those answers:
-I am younger than I think
-yes a larva inside of me
-believe others when they see it in you
-if I get called....go gatsby
-beware of the sappers in life
-feel the pain of loss when it comes unexpectedly
-read good books,become a good writer
& eat caprese salad at least once a week

Moving Day

an oldie dusted off for, One Shot Wednesday # 35

http://onestoppoetry.com/

I wrote this when I thought more was more
so it has sat in the writer's box
Vicki Lane's blog post today,at http://vickilanemysteries.blogspot.com/ remined me of my loss
of a friend.. to moving...so I dusted this one off for today's Wednesday poem
but it is still too much talking
So I tried to capture it in a somewhat haiku form
..better I think
I posted them both


Moving Day

I drove around the block, past
her house,watched
them load the moving van,
steadied the steering wheel,
refused to turn inward
toward the curb
I just couldn't say goodbye
one last time

Like an overpacked box
I struggled to stay together
All the rest of the day
tears perched at eye rims,
refused to drop

I waited until evening
drove past her house
again,knowing
she was really gone

This time the wheel relented,
turned inward
The house before me sat dark,
her chinese lamp
not glowing in the window
as it had for the last 10 years
Suddenly, the landscape lights
switched on, illuminated
my loss

A ghostly presence
in the night air

                                                                          

********************************************************************************************

Haiku compression:

dark windows at night

her move like a heavy box

her spirit lingers

Magpie tale # 55, Agony

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

I hate the remorse the most.
Every time I have to feast to live, I betray.
But this one I truly loved. Trying to stay away from her
nearly drove me insane. But when she came to my door,
dressed in that strapless sundress, her neck white and supple
as a newborn babe, I knew in that instant, I could no longer protect her.
My ancestry has power over me that even I cannot control.
I thought it irony that she was wearing a sundress, the only time I cannot
truly be with her.
But the craving waits,waits until I can find her in the darkness of a moonlit night.
 I showed up at her door and confessed my love of her, took her into my arms
and caressed her slim beautiful body. In the moment that she expected me to enter her,
satisfying her desire, I sunk my teeth into her neck , my arousal awakened in full force, stronger than I had ever experienced it.  I drank until she collapsed  to death,moonlight shining brightly on her opened eyes.
I was filled with self hate,having satified my lust for my love.
But I cannot love like normal men,I can only survive.
I wish I could take this knife from the kitchen counter before I leave and kill myself, but mine is a life of no death.
All I can do is drop it on the counter, blood splattering onto lemons there,heartshaped drops of my deed, the only clue of my agony.