Why

Because:

1.  it's snowing
2.  the river is about to flood
3.  it's too hot to do more
4.  you're stuck in traffic and the A/C quit
5.  your best friend just called with good news
6.  your ex called to invite you to the wedding
7.  an old boyfriend took the time to look you up
8.  you just learned that it's not always about you
9.  you just got downsized out of a job and you dont care
10. you went to your 35th class reunion and no one knew you
11. the light is better over there
12. I said so
13. your 40 yr old daughter called from Arkansas, she's coming back home to live with you

Thursday Thirteen

Dreaming the book

I've mentioned before that now and then I will have a dream that is solid reportage,  starting with me reading (in the dream state) a newspaper article, which then turns to hearing a narration and then to a careful segue into being the article itself.

Lately, coming down off of that game intensive year of no reading at all beyond cereal boxes and soup can labels,  I've been reading a stack of 600 page monster novels from people like Michael Crichton, Lee Child, John Grisham--one every other day, cover to cover.  and now I've found that when I dream I dream as a narrator/writer of very similar novels, long winded, plain speech, in that very similar voice...

I keep thinking, if it were only possible to  type and dream at the same time, by now Id have at least the better part of a lawyer driven-deep south-highly complicated novel of murder and mess, written out and ready to be proofed.  I wake up drenched in sweat, and exhausted.

Maybe it would work with poetry. Hrm..

Don't try this at home

This computer (Win 7) has a nice System Restore function, gives me a new restore point every day, for the days when Bone and Headed meet on the keyboard.

There is also  a nifty little tool called "Snip".  You can take the part of any image on the screen and plunk it in a photo managing setting.  a face, a bit of text,  anything.  

I've never been much of a fan of it,  but today I was messing around on the desktop with it and
suddenly I hit the wrong button and my entire screen image was upside down.

trying to read a computer screen upside down is hard enough, trying to work the cursor from a mirror-upside-down position  is an excercise in insanity.  I rebooted, back into the same upside down image and then opened a program to see if it just affected the wall paper.   no.....it was all over everything.  

oh. my. god.

My whole computer.

I KNOW where the sys. restore function is, but trying to find it while reading upside down and the cursor seems to want to hide in the wrong corner, and then locating the right line...luckily I only lost a few hours of the day, and I have whipped the Snip tool soundly and put it to bed without its supper.  

6 things that made a difference (6WS)

1. Learning to read (mother said, anything on the bookshelves. if you can reach it, you can read it)
2. Living for two years in the city (oy, the freedom)
3. A neighbor brought me my first kitten when I was twelve.  I told Mother, it could have been worse.     It could have been a pony.
4. Marrying the right guy
5. Seeing this house for the first time
6. Learning to drive (oy, the freedom)


[make your own list, public or private. It's funny, the things that really mattered, really changed you from who you were into who you are. ]

Shhhhh

1. Harry Langdon
2. Ben Turpin
3. Harold Lloyd
4. Charlie Chaplin
5. Marie Dressler
6. Francis X. Bushman
7. Lillian Gish
8. Rudolph Valentino
9. Greta Garbo
10. Clara Bow
11. Norma Talmadge
12. Lionel Barrymore
13. Lon Chaney


Thursday Thirteen

I just saw him...

through the front door
over the back porch
out the window
beneath the window sill
up the chimney
around the corner
inside the cellar
under the stairs
behind the curtains
in back of the bureau
beyond the fence
up in the attic
out on the roof


Thursday 13

Oh, please

It is nearly the 4th of July, and it is 57 degrees out and rainy.  I have a spirited fire in the kitchen stove.   The plants, of course love it,  and the two inches of rain we're getting tells me we might just have a good summer,  just not when

addendum:  it is now 47 degrees, and I am seriously considering a fire in the dining room stove.  The cat has been out once, looked at me as if  I were insane, and came back in, wind whipped and soggy.   =)

Not a Trick of the Light (6WS)

In the winter, Charlie is a medium long haired grey/white/black leggings cat

In the summer, he is a medium short haired dark brown/medium brown. black leggings cat

I have  no idea why, except that he may have an 'overcoat' of white/grey that replaces the brown.

In Brief

1. Dylan
2. Shakespeare
3. Cher
4. Marilyn
5. Garbo
6. Kennedy
7. Einstein
8. Gable
9. Lennon
10  Lincoln
11. Capote
12. Liberace
13. Streisand



New Thursday 13

The Dark of the Moon Blues (6WS)

Spring Tides

when the light goes out up there

for a day or two, 

I feel the tug of nothing

like trying to sing in a vacuum

and no sounds come out

no song satisfies 

unless it's in a minor key

with that heavy beat behind it

like a steady blow

between the shoulder blades

and I begin to slosh in and out

like the spring tide,

retreating further and further from shore

exposing rocks and broken shells

that won't be seen again

for another year

Color Spectrum Test

color spectrum test

aha I found it  

color is in the eye of the beholder

Red
Green
Yellow
Orange
Grey
Brown
Black
Purple
Fuchsia
White
Blue
Pink
Blue Green



more lucky 13s at: Thursday 13

Recovered from the old "6 sentences" site, now defunct

Oh, Let Me Count the Ways

After 30 years of longing and self-imposed madness, still gifted with a sixth sense about her, Jack took to counting pickup trucks; no idea why that particular item, except they were handy, numerous, and ubiquitous.  The goal was ten thousand even, but with an added handicap of no red or white ones, and no extended cabs.  When he added the last truck on I-81, he stopped for coffee in the next town as a kind of 'seal the deal' event, wondering with rock-solid certainty not "if" but "when"  'it' would happen.

As he was getting up to leave the door jangled open and three stout blowsy middle-aged women walked in,  brushing by as he shrugged awkwardly into his jacket.   One of the voices reached him, resonating for a very long moment before he threw down the tip with a clatter, getting just a glimpse of her as he passed their table--nahh,  he thought,  it couldn't be.  Back in the car again, he looked around the parking lot.  "One", he said, "two, three, four..."

about the nature of game addiction (6WS)

I have an addictive personality--I am also highly competitive. This is a dynamite and dangerous combination when it comes to games in which you pit yourself against opponents, obstacles, or both. When the opponents are not computer generated, there is also a sense of community that springs up among people on one 'side' vs. the other 'side'.

You may maintain your "I"ness, your persona, but it gets subverted into a kind of group mode in order to succeed in quests, adventures, or goals that are group oriented.  The "I" is there, but it's now  involved in making decisions that affect the entire group, and the more independent you are, it is both harder and easier at the same time to devote your energies to that group and that goal.

I have just finished a year long stint with a game called RailNation.  There were four separate games played,  each lasting 12 weeks, with a slight space between each one.  It was played out on a map of the United States, and you settled (with your association) in one city and 'owned' it.  It is,  frankly, maddeningly, one of the best, hardest, and most interesting games I have ever played, one of the most addictive, and it required attention on a daily/hourly basis. Unlike many games, WoW most notably,  it continued on whether you were logged on or not.  That meant you were more or less forced to show up fairly regularly in order to be productive and useful to your Association.

I loved it, and hated it by the end of the last round, which ended last week.

 I'm gone.  The new game started today,  I went over and saw that I could log in,  and I fled. Seriously.  Took down the shortcut and the references to it.

Then I went out and mowed the lawn.

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

                  One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
             Two Happy People...
                 Three Men in a Boat
                                 Four Door Sedan
                 Five Finger Exercise
                      Sixpence
           Seven Days in May
                               Eight is Enough
                Nine Men's Morris
                    Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes
           Ocean's Eleven
                    Twelve O'clock and All's Well
                              THURSDAY THIRTEEN

sleeping beauty

I've always had trouble falling asleep.

For as long as I can remember, it's been a tussle to 'get there' no matter how tired, how dark, how late, the brain just kept on humming.  I lay a lot of the blame to being put to bed way too early as a kid, and in the summer being in bed while it was still light out.
Being a night person by nature, I hadnt shut down yet enough and spent probably an hour or more trying to get into sleep mode.

I used to count, sometimes into the tens of thousands, to bore myself to sleep.  As an adult I just waited it out.

Even after I got married, even after we came up here to live,  it was always a struggle to drift off, especially being married to a man who fell asleep almost instantly. That is SO annoying.

Then something magical happened, and Im still not sure what it was, but it worked.  One day I was rearranging the bedroom, and happened to place the bed on the west wall, covering an old bedroom fireplace that we didnt use and had sealed off.  That night I got into bed and the next thing I knew it was morning.

Whoa, I thought. That was amazing. Next night, same thing.  Every night.  No more toss-and-turn, no more waiting for the brain to stop stravaging through my entire life history,  I would lie down, toss and turn once, and wake up the next morning.

It may be part of the Feng Shui thing the Chinese use, where furniture placement is supposed to help or hinder your mood and temperament.  I've lived in many places, some of them with the bed facing east, but never facing a window that way. Always a wall.  It's been over 20 years since I moved that bed and only rarely do I have trouble sleeping, maybe once a year.

To anyone who has trouble sleeping, or falling asleep, this is a miracle every night.  However, Ill never be able to move the bed again  =)

A Poem for Six Word Saturday (6WS)

LOVE SONG TO MY  WIFE

          (by J. Sprat)

Last week we fixed the door.

Today you broke the floor.

Every time you take a bath

I fear for every lath

and every beam and timber.

I am no longer young or limber

and it’s really getting harder

to avoid your mammoth ardor--

I think we need to talk.

You can no longer safely walk

without causing mass destruction

to the sturdiest construction

from the kitchen to the basement.

This will be the fifth replacement

of the stairs.  When you cannot make it

through a door without a jimmy

then I can no longer take it.

I’ve seen you in your shimmy.

I’d love you more, turtledove,

if there were just a little less of you to love.

                                       (published, Melic Review, long ago)

Thursday 13 the hard way (built 'em myself)

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Animators beware

                                    what happens when the gremlins take over
                              (you  can also run this full screen, it shows up better)

When I got up this morning (6WS)

It was 31 degrees
This is not necessary
I have filed a letter of complaint
with the proper authorities

Can anyone read here today

Is anyone else having trouble reading here?  Someone just emailed me to say they were having trouble with the RSS feed (of which i know nothing)...and if you can read here, just let me know...

Color Me 13

yellow
yellow orange
orange red
red
reddish purple
purple
purple blue
blue
bluish green
greenish blue
green
greenish yellow
yellow

THURSDAY THIRTEEN

never count the old tree out--part 2

a year ago last october I posted  pictures of our old apple tree in the back field:

the tree had rescued itself from firewood status by suddenly sprouting leaves--and eventually produced two apples.

today I went out to take a look at the tree, and found this:

I'd say, by and large, it's doing quite well for an old lady tree,
in spite of the sags and wrinkles and bits falling off here and there,
And maybe, come this October, there will be apples again.

how to spend a winter day (6WS)

If I had to go to that desert island...boom box in hand...

1. Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam)
2. Willie Nelson
3. The Be Good Tanyas
4. Iris Dement
5. Richard Thompson
6. Dire Straits
7. David Gray
8, James Taylor
9. Bonnie Raitt
10. Highwaymen
11. Bob Seger
12. Joan Baez
13. Joni Mitchell


THURSDAY THIRTEEN

Day late, as usual

13 ways to start the season


1. find the mower
2. find the book that tells you how to start it
3. find the gas can
4. scour the lawn for last years tools
5. prune apple trees
6. build compost bins
7. move compost
8. mow
9. mulch
10. prune what should have been pruned in March
11. hook up outside hose (yessss!)
12. apologize to the cat for the bath
13. admire



Thursday Thirteen

Spring poem

Green

While you were away

the seasons passed

from dark to light:

leaves fell, snow fell.

Now the fruit trees

bloom with rare abundance

as if they knew

of your return

and so rejoice.

More than once your shadow

fell across my dreams:

this was, after all,

the place you started from.

The seasons changed.

Now green again

and fruitful

I, too, rejoice.     

spelling--ruminations and an apology

The English language is filled with spelling traps (I often wonder about other languages, but I KNOW this one for sure) that we spend most of our lives navigating like mine fields.  It doesn't help that we now have elf-sized keyboards to turn even decent spellers into typo kings.

Some words are spelled the way they sound, and some are spelled very very strangely: brougham, trough, Worcestershire,  sough,  Wednesday...

The root of the problem is genetic: we are born with the spelling gene either intact, or with it just wandering around out there making cute typos and errors that the good spellers pounce on, endlessly.  I am cursed (some would say) with the Good Spelling Gene.  It's not pretty, trust me.

Sometimes I think we exist just to annoy the rest of the world,  and our penance is to always come in first in those horrible Spelling Bees (do they even have those now?) and sometimes make it all the way to the semi finals and the final finals, only to be defeated by some snip called Marcy who rips out the proper spelling for "discotheque" and you, who have never seen it in print, spell it as 'discoteque" and the audience "awwww" resonates in your ears for the next hour...

Our life long curse is to see words spelled (spelt) badly and wildly, and are unable or unwilling to correct what we see.  Ugly, I tell ya. Ugly.  With the advent of Tablets, teeny keyboards,  people who think they can touch type but can't,  people who touch type and shouldn't, and a new wave of phonitic speling (as someone said, "you can figure it out, right?") and Spell-Check that threatens to undermine even the Spelling Bee proponents, and I do begin to wonder, why bother.  I can figure it out, right?





(but I don't want to...)

The Gentle Slap in the Face (6WS)

When you go into a store--thrift shop, used furniture,  etc--and discover that the mixer/serving dishes/utensils you bought as a bride have now been upgraded to "Vintage".

When an old classmate recognizes you and you not only have no idea who he/she is (even when they introduce themselves) and you realize that  he/she thinks you're someone else...even when you introduce yourself back, and they say, "no you're not"--and now you are suddenly in a world of alternate universes

The books you loved as a child are now in the category online of  "collector's items"

Everyone you went to school with, were a bridesmaid for, or you threw baby showers for, is a grandparent.  They are suddenly old.   Too.

This is charming

The new memory

As we get older our memory becomes a strange and wondrous experience. Today I was once more confronted, for some reason, with what appears to be a periodic 'cleansing" by Google to make sure we are all where we should be and not someone else.  When this happens I quietly go to pieces, because I know a terrible thing is going to happen.

You see, I have about 80 skillion email addies at Yahoo, and have over the years been adding and removing them as the tides turn and the weather changes.

One of them I use in here.

Easy, right?  heh

I also have two email addresses for Google.  One of them I use in here.

When I am asked, on occasion, to sign in rather than just hit the button and begin posting,  the panic starts to prickle down my spine.  Which one oh my which one is it...

So I dab at one, and it says, 'your  password was changed three months ago. is this true?" and they ask me to verify it. [see paragraph 2.]  If you hit the wrong one you are asked to reset your password and the first time it went swimmingly until I was asked to sign in here with it and  realized that I had forgotten to write it down...

Finally I found one that would work, after being told repeatedly that Google now keeps track of your passwords and you cannot, simply cannot use that again, its already in use on another account.   It gets better.

After carefully writing this down and having it approved you are asked to present a verification email address in case of lord alone knows what,  which means another search for another yahoo address and another password and finally, an hour later and (should have been a five minute event) i have a new password, and this time I took a screen shot and saved it in my photo program...

I just hope I can remember what name I used to save it under.

Frozen Lakes

   The first heavy autumn rain soon became a week-long torrent, and then two more unexpected weeks of it; a steady numbing downpour that invaded their souls, filling the otherwise silent rooms with the sound of  a river rushing through a ravine.  Leaving the house was nearly impossible--Katy said it was like swimming through a waterfall, the radio reminding anyone listening to head for higher ground, as the autumn floods were rampant and getting worse as streams further north began to rise and join the swollen rivers in the valleys that surrounded them.   

   After the power went out on the first weekend they slowly began to revert to a rhythm much like that of their not so distant ancestors--eat, tend the fireplaces, sleep, read; turn on the generator just long enough to keep the freezer and refrigerator cold.  The radio stopped working, and they finally understood that the stations were no longer broadcasting. 

   Long unused board games and dusty decks of cards were unearthed and the days were filled with Monopoly, Parcheesi, Gin Rummy, and Chess.  There was plenty of food and fuel for the present but, aware of long term possibilities, they instinctively meted out their supplies carefully--"good time to go on a diet" they agreed, laughing a bit too hard...

   After the rains stopped and the sun reluctantly came out they waited, like Noah's Ark inhabitants, until  the waters abated a bit and the road became a passable if not driveable road again;  living on the highest point of land meant flooding was ordinarily from the ground up, and as Peter said more than once, if we flood, the rest of the world is in trouble.

   The road of course was impassable in a vehicle, so they ventured out on foot to see what had happened to the valley; without even a telephone for communication they had been utterly isolated for almost the entire three weeks--even the cell phones had stopped working, and they were simply unprepared for what met them halfway to the end of the long steep driveway.

   They saw trees bent and broken, uprooted, floating in a glistening lake of brown water that glowed serenely in the sunlight. Houses along where the main road had been were gone,  although here and there stubborn chimneys were still showing above the stinking water, and debris still contained dead animals, floating bodies, household possessions buoyant enough to float. 

   The silence was complete, except for the sound of water moving steadily and firmly past them, and now and then a tree giving up its muddy struggle with gravity;   no one spoke--they finally turned, stunned, and struggled up the devastated road toward the house and warmth and the reality of a shrinking food supply, dwindling fuel, and a winter, if they survived that long, of frozen lakes. 

one of those darned observer dreams (6WS)

the observer/reporter for a plane crash,  as a voice over:  "the parents had refused the baby seat for their 6 month old child--when the plane crashed, it was the one thing that saved the baby's life, since the spot where it would have been firmly strapped in was directly under a luggage holder, which dropped all its luggage onto the spot where the baby, pinned by the seat, would have been crushed.

As it was, it had been thrown out of the mother's arms and rolled--or crawled--under the seat in front of it, protected and safe. The parents were killed by the falling luggage.  The baby's angry cries were detected by a flight attendant who had been commandeered to search for any signs of life--she found the child, slightly bloodied but mostly just angry and hungry--the attendant had just given birth to a child a month previous and without even thinking  took the child to a secluded place, opened her tunic, and nursed it.  Fifteen minutes later someone found them, nestled against a pile of lumber and rubble, content with each other and ignoring the disaster around them. "

and then the camera moves back to show one small woman nursing a small baby while workers continue the search for more casualties...

These are the oddest dreams,  this is probably the fourth in a series. They all seem to encompass humanity, a newpaper article being read which turns into a visual and a voice over--this one took the form of a news reporter and a movie type image not of the crash but of the aftermath...

And if I record  it fast enough, it comes back nearly verbatim.  =)

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Random

which is where I seem to be right now

ad on a local radio station which always reminds me of how the other 99% of the world lives

"our house was so drafty and cold  all last winter it was like living in a refrigerator.  Why we had to wear two sweaters just to keep warm... "   Poor babies. they couldnt just wear long underwear and slipper socks and a scarf and maybe a nice heavy down vest like the rest of us???



I know we are on the other side of winter here, because no matter how cold it really is at any given moment,  or how high the snow is, we keep forgetting to feed the fiyahs.  They get restarted a LOT now.    I would say that psychologically wintah is ovah.  Now if we could just convince the weather gods.
The light suddenly seems different.  The sun now rises way over there instead of directly across the field, and of course its been sliding northward for 2 1/2 months, we just havent noticed.  And in a very few days it will be the first of spring.  (fist pump)  

When I was a little girl one of my favorite books was one of Robert Louis Stevenson's, with charming 30s type pictures of little boys and girls playing with hoops and kittens and such...and one which always puzzled me--the poem for March (or spring, anyway) showed a little girl on a swing, green grass all around her, and she is wearing a little girl dress and a sweater...
I had no knowledge of Britain  or different climates, and it was very hard to relate to that little girl on her swing,  wearing only summery clothes outside in March...


Sorry about the lack of anything in here,  i think im in brain freeze right now.  no promises, no guarantees.  Ill leave the cookie jar here and the coffee urn. help yourselves in the meantime

1.                  

For Harvey

                                                            rose and bee balm

                                                              mammoth dill

                                                                monarch butterfly

snow sculpture

Sometimes You Just Have To Laugh =) (6WS)

Proof reading this before it went public might have helped, lol

(then again, maybe it was...)

I'm fine, thanks, just fine

Went to the dentist yesterday,  a minor filling. The dental assistant was pleasant,  maybe in her frowzy mid-fifties,  very talkative, which I like.  After the filling, the dentist left and Maggie tried to help me up out of the chair. 'I'm fine," I said, struggling to overcome Bad Back Wonky Hip syndrome,  reaching for my purse. She hurried to get it for me, and hovered, I swear, hovered, over me...
She kept asking if I were okay, if  I needed help, was I dizzy--and she continued to hover like an officious hummingbird, ready to grab me if I staggered.

I suddenly felt like a fragile old lady.

When I finally managed to break free and get out of the room, she was right at my elbow, and once or twice I could feel her trying to take my granny elbow and steer me.  I said, you're on my blind side,  I can't see you, so forgive me if I walk into you...

She accompanied me to the office and told everyone there what a good patient I had been, in a slightly raised kindergarten voice,  and finally left.  She did ask once more if I was going to be all right and I assured her I was fine, just fine.

And now I understand what a disservice we do to older people by insisting they be as old as we think or insist they are. It unsettles them to be regarded as too old to move without help,  to have their freedoms restricted by the young and nervous,  to be asked continually if they feel okay...I'm fine, really.  Just fine.

Just sayin'

-17 degrees Fahrenheit
-27.2  degrees Celsius
245.9  degrees Kelvin
-21.7 degrees Reaumur
442.67 degrees Rankine

Happy Man

Something for a Snowy Saturday Morning (6WS)

Sat and watched this whole thing,  learned a neat new way
to take tight corners, too...

My Own Version of Wordless Sunday

right now we need some summer (6WS)

Last week

Monday afternoon in the kitchen, and I could hear water gushing from somewhere and the well pump (which is in the cellar not in the well) running, but not the water tank. The gush was under the sink, where a pipe had come apart at a joint and was trying very hard to turn my kitchen floor into the next flood plain.  oh yes. all under the sink, the insulation, the dishes, the newspaper we used for insulation, the rugs...

Couldnt turn the water off, the levers are meant to be hammered, not turned, apparently.  and the pump  is running and running...couldnt close the  water faucets down cellar, they need superhuman strength or orangutan blood to operate...and the water is running and running...

Husband is out plowing, by the time he got back I'm on the porch in wet slippers waving at him.  Actually waving is really too mild: "gesticulating wildly" might be closer to the truth

He had all he could do to stop the Niagara Falls  under the sink, all he could do to turn the main switches off down cellar...

Some things you just know are going to happen. Last month for no particular reason I bought a new clothesline that I really didn't need yet , and earlier in the fall two good ten quart pails, of the sort suitable for carrying water from a well.  And I have had a 1 gallon jug of drinking water in the fridge, something i never do.

So while he figured out What Went Wrong and What To Do Until theDoctor Comes,  I  hunted down the two shiny new pails, the old blue well pail with the fishing sinker on it, and then made my knotted well rope. Old habits have a kind of muscle memory,  ain't it grand.  Got the dug well cover off and sure enough, there's water down there.                                                          

                                                     

makes you want to run right out and haul water, don't it

Half an hour later we have water in the house, if not in the faucets.  He's got his owner's manuals out, and I'm trying to adjust to the very real possiblity of no faucets for maybe a week or more.  I'm spoiled, that's what it is...and while he turned pages and made funny noises I mopped up the water on the floor, moved the wet papers and rugs and such to a place where they could drip silently,  and pulled all the stuff out of the cupboards.    By Tuesday  he had a new faucet in place, new piping, and i am in awe. 18 hours without water and it was as if a switch had been shut down.  I kept turning it on, watching the water flow, feeling  like Helen Keller in The Miracle Worker...

The icicles on my mother's roof (6WS)

Harvey asked me a really good question today:  How has age changed you? How has your thinking changed?

Had to stop and think about that for a bit,  since time moves faster for all of us, as we discover there is less in front to discover and more in back to remember.

I seem to have stopped writing. Not totally, but it no longer seems to have a presence in my life. Now and then one gets away from me, but for the most part they don't dominate the way they did.  Yeah.

Some days its all  memory,  some days its 'where did I put the scissors" and by the time you find them you've forgotten why you needed them and when you do remember, you 've lost the scissors again

I make a sandwich, the phone rings and I wander away to answer it,  then off to start a project,  and an hour later come back to the kitchen to find that the cat has made himself a sandwich and is just now licking up the last of the crumbs...

Tell the doctor about the wandering memory and he goes straight into denial, "You do NOT have memory loss!"  and slams that door shut...

But getting older has forced me to move a bit more slowly, and in doing so I find a joy in pauses:  watching a flight of geese, walking through those trees, seeing  it  become something other, something that will outlast us.  And knowing that I have less time than I had, and that dark wall looms closer every year,  
I'm less willing to assign importance to things that I cant change.

Years ago we had one of those high snow winters,  and Mother was sliding into her dotage, but still  in her own home. One night she called me, terribly distraught, wanted me to come over and "do something" about the icicles that lined the front of the house like prison bars. She was afraid they'd break off and damage the windows.  The fact that we were having yet another storm and her front lawn was already four feet deep in snow wasn't important, and she started the "if you loved me' thing.  Finally she said, "at least you could help me worry!" and hung up.

  I refuse to worry about icicles I can't reach,  or events that will change whether I'm here or not.

Thanks,  Harvey.

Damage Control

Sometimes you will see a delicate piece of glassware slide off the table and out of reach, and all you can do is watch as, incredibly, it bounces when it hits the floor, and only on the second bounce actually shatters.
And you think, if only I had been there to catch it --although I've always wondered if it wasn't already broken but didn't know it yet, and possibly the damage was  already done, as it shattered in your hands.

There are also times when a friend does the same thing, slides out of his life imperceptibly,  and you work to save him, with nets and love and hands holding his--but he eludes your grasp, and like that glassware, hits the floor a second time, and shatters as thoroughly.

You knew the damage was already there;  saving him would  have been saving something that had broken but not yet shattered, a long time ago

By The Side of The Road (6WS)

or sometimes on the other side 

 or over there where the rocks and ledges end, and (small) animals live in (possibly) small caves under the ledges there

if  you choose your morning with a bit of ground fog that rose before the sun did, and you come to a turn in the road...

                     or wait until late afternoon when the sun slides in under the branches

                             and realize that this is what you've been waitng for,  for a very long time

                                        and maybe just maybe  it was worth the wait

Merry Christmas

from all of us to all of you

Another Solstice Rears Its Ugly Head (6WS)

(so I'm a little late)

WINTERSONG--

     HARVESTING THE LIGHT

In winter we carry mirrors

to dark rooms,

harvesting the light;

December’s pale sun thus becomes

a multitude of suns.

We send candles into the darkness.

Nothing is wasted.

Seen from the proper angle

morning sun becomes an infinity of light

reaching back to the first sunrise

on the first day,

reaching ahead to the last.

Dark rooms are transformed

by prisms of clear light.

As winter moves into spring

we adjust the mirrors

in rhythm with the lengthened days,

tinkering with the available light;

harvesting, harvesting.

By March we nearly have it right.

Snow, Rain, Sleet, Snow, Snow, Cold (6WS)

What, no thunderstorms?  No hail?  No gale force winds?   Only one blizzard this month and that was two weeks ago...

Something is terribly wrong, the temps are actually above 0 F. (thats -17C, folks) and I may be able to go outside without fearing for my life, my bone structure, and my dignity.






Maybe tomorrow.  When I can no longer see my reflection in the surface of the driveway

Suspended Animation

Over the past few weeks I've been reading into the "Next Blog" place;  its amazing the number of people who have just stopped posting,  usually just before a cliffhanger, like the birth of a child, or a trip, or a wedding.  Maybe they started up another, elsewhere, a year or two later, or just  never went back to take the old one down.

In a way its like finding an unfinished undated letter that begins,
"Dear Mom and Dad, 
things have been a bit rough here but  we seem to have gotten things back on track, 
now that both kids are home and safe now,  I promise to keep"

--and there's a photo of two cute kids,  boy and a girl, he has a leg cast and she has  a huge plaster across one side of the head.  you'll always wonder who these people were, what happened to the kids, and what happened to let that letter be abandoned.

Unfinished blogs are like that, too. They just hang in the air, some of them started years before, hundreds and hundreds of photos (and oh I do wish they had taken down the kids pictures first) and hundreds of posts. And for five years or longer those blogs have sat there while the parents aged,  the kids grew up, the dog died, and their  life moved away and down a different street;

The kind that started mostly as a kind of textual howl of rage or annoyance, page after page filled with self pity and really REALLY strange pictures, and then disappeared;

Bad poetry, mostly written by girls with too much green hair, fake tattoos and ugly glittery shoes. Or fan sites in another language which are little more than paeans to young rock stars or anime characters;

Now and then a serious connect with someone , in that way that happens when you least expect it,  you somehow collide in mid-blog with someone and keep going back.  You lurk. They lurk back. Its like a dance with one person and yet you're watching that other neat person across the dance floor, who is also looking back...

You wonder if anyone in those abandoned blogs even realizes--or cares--that they're here apparently forever, in suspended animation, part of a life preserved under glass.