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.

Madonna of the Magpies

Oh dear I found this surfing around yesterday
for another picture on the net
and I saved this one..because
hello....magpies and madonna
I saved it for our madonna of the magpies
only thing is....I don't know who to attribute it to
I thought I saved the site, but I can't find it
so enjoy it for the day my fellow magpiers
If you look closely the title is on the painting
Madonna of the magpies
looks a bit like Tess, don't you think?

A Finn day

Microfiction # 71 -Committed

microfiction # 71

Writing prompt
from Susan at:
http://www.stonyriver.ie/                                                                                            

Life like a long hallway

Little shafts of light

from brief opened doors

Darkness snares his feet

and he stops, never reaching

a life

-138-

magpie tale , Revealed

Magpie # 54

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

Revealed

Life had been a series of puzzle

pieces,scattered,turned around,

ill fitting,missing jigsawed days

until the right one of me

emerged and looked at the bigger picture

Then every bit of it fell into place,

interlocking,revealing a why for every piece

Not one left in the box

unclaimed

***

searching for haiku

Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Today, I will love much.

The snow of February is almost gone.
Hard to believe,
two days of balmy weather,
and my angst is gone,
and I forget how I grumbled.

But the earth drinks up the water
and the buds swell even more
And I feel a renewal,a swelling too,
in my being... to love much.
The sky is blue
the sun is out
I'm going to Galena,my promised land
can't wait to see the fields
and the cows
and the good people that live there

and as the poet Wilcox states above
"Earth has enough bitter in it."
So," love much"
 today

Today
is all I have,
and I can't hold it in my palm.
I have to breath it in
one breath at a time,
hold the taste of it in my mouth,
not mindlessly swallowing,
for it shall never be this day again.
I must ask myself,
What do you hear?
For it is only in the focus of a thing
do you hear,
see, taste,
smell,
touch,
and love.
Today is all I have
and it comes in moments,
 seconds,
and heartbeats.

Magpie Tale # 53, The Shaker

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

There was salt in the pepper shaker for as long as I could remember.

Grandma said the salt shaker got broken the year she moved into the house so she

simply added salt to the pepper shaker.

My brother and I, in our youthfull innocence, told her it wasn't right to do that.

I even pointed out to her once, when we were very small,

that the shaker had a scary face.

"Stuff and nonsense" she said, "why that shaker is pure crystal.

 But I don't want you two using too much of my salt."

And she always did keep her eye on that shaker.

But we knew that there many things in grandma's house that were strange and frightening.

She made us sleep up in the attic when we stayed over. Once, I saw a bat fly overhead

in the middle of the night, lit by the moonlight shafting in through the eyebrow window.

"Folderol and snakes" she said, shaking her head,her eyes glistening in a menacing way.

"Bats are the friendly things in this house."

As we got older, my brother decided to skip the trips to grandmother's house on the weekends.

But grandma fascinated me with her ways and I loved the herb garden out back of her house.

I loved its shape, interlocking triangles.

When I asked her why it was this way, she took her tiny thin finger and poked me on the shoulder.

"Magic" is all she would say.

But I never saw any,magic that is. She was just a plain grandma who was always busying herself

with reading and cooking and the taking care of her cat,Boo.

Boo didn't like me. He sat on the table with his paws around the salt shaker glaring at me with his yellow eyes,tail flicking wildly.

One night Boo starting hissing and arching his back,shilly shallying across the room like he saw something.

'What is it Boo?" I asked him.

He jumped up on the table and knocked down the salt shaker. He began yeowlling and flew off the table like his tale was on fire.

"Grandma,grandma!' I yelled, "Boo knocked your shaker down."

From out of the kitchen my grandmother came,an alarmed look on her face when she saw the shaker down and opened,a tiny bit of salt spilt on the table.

"He's out, child, get behind me," she said grabbing my shirt.

"Who's out?" I asked, my breath short and rapid.

"The spirit." I have neglected to keep the shaker filled, and he's gotten out."

Before I could answer, the lights dimmed and a wind howled across the room

rattling the crystal on her chandelier.

"Quick child,into the pantry."

She grabbed my hand and we rushed into the pantry and she locked the door.

"Salt, we need salt!"

 She grabbed the container and began sprinkling it all over me making my eyes burn and tear. Then she poured it on herself and across the crack of the door near the floor.

 "What spirit, Grandma, you're scaring me!" I cried.

"The spirit I conjured out of this old house. I thought I could trap it in the shaker, evil hates salt,child."

"Is that why you never had pepper?"

"Shhh!" she said as the door began to shake and the door knob rattled.

Outside we could hear Boo hissing and spitting, and things being knocked around the room.

"Get him Boo!" grandma said, her fists clenched.

We heard the sound of breaking glass and the roar of a tempest.  Then nothing.

 Grandma waited a while before opening the door and peering out, a handful of salt in the palm of her hand.

"Oh,Boo!" she cried,"my precious Boo!"

Just below the shattered window, Boo laid still on the oak floor.

"The spirit doesn't like cats either," grandma said holding her injured cat to her bosom.

"Quick child,go back to the pantry and bring me the purple glass canning jar."

I did as I was told and watched as grandma reached into the jar and pulled out a root that looked like a person. She rubbed it over Boo's body while chanting something very low.

 "Mandrake," she said.

Slowly Boo opened his eyes and began purring.

Grandma looked at me with resignation in her eyes.

"I guess I'll have to teach you now, teach the ways."

"Grandma ,you mean I really did see a scary face in that shaker once?"

"Yes,child," she answered, "you did. Now we must get to work right away,he'll be back."

A battle time

While out to dinner with my DH
I said to him ..

If someone messed with my mother or kid, I'd take them down..
but it is still hard for me to fight for myself...

We had a nice discussion about this, but truth be known,we weren't talking
about the same thing.

I made several drastic changes in my life, and lifestyle, about 7 years ago.
It was hard and very inwardly painful.
...I tell friends
 that it was a matter of recovering from myself.
I had to fight back against the person who had found a place of safety and no growth.

You see that woman in the red shorts in the above picture?
....that's who I really am on the inside
But it took much excavating to find that out.
 I am a sensual, confident woman
who loves red, and body adornments, and toned muscles & fashion
A free spirit who yearns to create
who wants to write and draw
a woman who wants freedom of body
to have that body,mind and soul connection

where once I had 3 pairs of shoes, I have now lost count

Yoga, Pilates,walking, good eating, and weight training
are me..ME!

I now have a room of my own where I indulge my creative spirit
yep, me.

But  I was  none of that

It took a lot of fighting back to find her and I have to do it dail.y
I only wished that I had excavated her sooner..when I could wear those shorts

That discovery journal was the important tool
It is not the actual cutting and pasting that impacts
but when you stand back and look at it as a whole
...what it reveals
OMG..what is on those pages? shocking
Is that really me...the one inside?

My Artist Way friends said a resounding YES
"we saw it" they said
"you just had to discover it"

But.... seeing it finally is one thing, then I had to implement these desires
Good lordie...not so easy
Not welcomed
Frightening to family/old friends
People think you have lost it 
My neighbor stopped me one day
 while I was getting the mail
..asked if I was sick..you look so different she said
Not the reaction I was hoping for

I went from a overweight house frau
to work out beast who jingled everywhere she went
Sounds simple these seemingly superficial changes
They were dynamite
  
I became a rebel for myself

I battle the old me every once in a while
She liked it safe
But I don't
So fight back....I say to myself, fight for your-self

Bless my DH for not seeing that I have lost
a piece of myself lately....and was trying to tell him
that I need to engage in a fight with that safe someone inside
who wants to take me down
A constant battle that is mine alone

Journal entry:
Change gives you different enemies
watch out

***

We've said it all,

no regrets

Now we hear the words

just looking at the sky

while holding hands

Like the joy of forgiveness
my lungs expanded
wanting more grace
a touch of Spring wafting
through the air

We still speak of dreams
but the best ones we have lived
 without our knowing

discovery journal page today

I want to thank all of you kind people who bother to take the time
to read and comment on my blogs
I do have another blog in case you didn't notice
where I tell you about my love for the garden
and this week, Everyday Goddess, picked me as one of her posts of the week
 http://www.goddesswrite.com/
I even got a sun for it
What I am trying to say is that her kindness,
and all of your comments that are so kind and encouraging,
go into me
and I am blessed because of it

 

Magpie Tale #52..WAITING

Ah,Tess, this photo calls to me, you outdid yourself

What a good eye, what wonderful composition

what heart strings you have played

A regular Rockwell you are

Now, to see what bubbles up

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

WAITING

I bought the house. The one on Peace Pipe Lane.

The one that is so narrow you can hardly pass to the back without going single file.

I just had to have this painted green brick house with the cream colored trim when I saw it. 

The red brick chimney sealed the deal.

I became aware of this house while at the Bridge Coffee House and Book Store,

saw its photo in a real estate magazine. The kind that they leave out for tourist

who have had a magical weekend meandering their ancient streets.

The streets where every house is at least 100 years old.

When I told my friends that I bought this house they thought I was bewitched.

Funny they said that,I was.

 In town one day I visited an herb and natural healing shop,got my palm read.

The woman said she saw a move in my future.

Really? I said. 

On the last day of my vacation to this out of the way town I was truly sorry to have to leave it.

Especially the cemetery that I had visited on Mound Hill St.

So many children didn't make it more than a day back then.

Most women died decades after losing their husbands.

 But one grave that I took a rubbing of really gave me a jolt.

It read....Mercurial Bead, died, not knowing.

Not knowing what? What?

I asked around town, but you know how small town are...not a word.

So I went to the library. I snooped around some old records and found that she had lived on Peace Pipe Lane. I was startled when the  librarian appeared and sat down next to me. "Do you want to know what she died not knowing? "

I shuddered straight through to my shoes.

"Someone took her child. She sat by the front window of her house for over 50 years, waiting, but she never knew what happened to her. Finally one day she hung herself in the basement,couldn't take the pain anymore. They say her house is haunted...can't sell it."

Well, I bought it. I understand Mercurial. I too, am waiting, waiting for someones return, my husband's return-MIA,Vietnam.

Maybe I can freshen the old place up a bit, bring some cheer.

Maybe I will make a pot of tea, put out two cups, ask Mercurial to sit...to tell me,

What's it like, knowing?

***

Happy anniversary Magpie Tales!

another page

I haven't placed anything in my discovery journal in a long time.
Pictures,phrases,quotes,art..or whatever I have collected along the way that spoke to me-
sometimes collaging bits and pieces of them...like this one
Browsing through my books (I have 4 journals of discovery) I came upon a few that spoke to me
right now

Your dreams are waiting---------get gutsy
yep...that's the one
avoidance can only take you so far
if the dream is real

***

A Haiku Thursday

It fell from the branch

the maple leaf mixed with oaks

It does not belong

***

 

a page from my illustrated discovery journal

Sometimes it is the pain in our lives
that opens us up to realizations and change
and that is powerful indeed

***

microfiction #sixty and nine

Susan host microfiction Monday at

http://www.stonyriver.ie/

The red sandstone school and old clock were still there,but what was once romantic,

was now only time and an old building on a moonless night

-141- 

***

Seconds

..spent the weekend Downtown
enjoyed a 100th birthday celebration
for President Reagan
Then on the way home...it was snowing,
the streets were almost empty and
the city of Chicago seemed sleeping...
except for this fella who dashed in front of our car
on a green light
in a hurry, or cold ,or lost in mindlessness

I thought of how a second
can change one's life
his and ours
and then my mind wandered to
how one man,like Ronald Reagan, can change a country
or one woman, like Rosa Parks,
can change a country's conscience
It is seconds these life changes..words that took seconds to say:
..Mr. Gorbachev,tear down this wall..
and an action that took seconds:
Rosa Parks not giving up her seat on a bus
Seconds,
big things really happen in seconds
And for us yesterday morning,
I am glad we had seconds
to avoid hitting this man, who never saw us,
busy on his way to I'll never know where

So,I take this second
to thank his angel,
the one that looked
like snow falling on city,
the one that he never saw...

Saturday thought

magpie haiku

http://magpietales.blogspot.com/

wet staggered brick path

tulips seek their way upward

Earth drinks up the rain