Ruminating

A few of my favourite photos from this past year.

 

Seems to me this was a  roller coaster year of emotions. 

 And that isn't a complaint in the least. 

Indeed my word for the year was (S)well

I suppose I asked for it then!

 

Cheers 2012, you have been rousing!

(Wait your turn 2013, I will talk to you tomorrow)

 

 



Handle Bars

That moustached man intrigues me. 

Such angst and turmoil, sadness and hair pulling avidity. 

 I wonder how much of it is because he sits alone in this crowded pub,

finds it de rigueur to the fill the empty space around himself with unnecessary motion.

 

all I want to do, on this day before the day before,

 is to lay my hand on his thin artistic shoulder

and whisper a reminder

 

to wear a curly smile above your lips

- such cheery jungle jim arms drawing rosy apples on your cheeks-

 

 is a recipe for joy.

Miss J

She sends word bombs across town

that explode in my heart

fizzing and popping with a special kind of goodness

I am quite certain

she has no idea

how they make me fly

with wings made of home-made chocolate love

 

And I think to myself

that if that baby of hers is caressed daily

with these same silky bits

Then one day

there will be a queen among us.

 



Pretty Words

Pretty words

Cascading over my shoulders and down my spine

Sinking barbs into the pathways between my eyes

and my gut

Disassembling my body into satiated parts

that could not walk away

When all signs said to run

 

 



Mr Dipper

Oh Mr Dipper, do you know how you tempt me

hanging so low in the northern sky

I am quite sure you are close enough for me to reach

Pull myself up into your cupped hand

and curl up in your midnight embrace

The Study of a Shoulder

Been absent from these pages

(I am sorry, I have missed you too)

Opting instead for pen on paper

Books and books and more books

Hawksley Workman constantly on repeat

Wood smoke and scotch, of course

And some fascination with shoulders

 



Farewell's

Saying goodbye is awful

The end

(photo by Hank)

Invisible Threads

 

 

"Hi my pretty Mama", he says.

And slips his little hand into mine.

The same hand that bravely holds giant bugs,

and exuberantly picks his nose.

 

And I can't help but weep

Cause once upon a time,

mine was the little hand holding.

 

There are invisible threads attached to everything.

Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity

Sometimes its nice to have company at night while I am folding laundry.  This was good company!

Raw

 



words these days

all sticky in my belly

censored

by exhaustion

and politeness

maybe emptiness

 

when said I wanted to be raw

I think I misunderstood myself

 

 

 

For the Birds

 

If you can't say anything nice
Don't say anything at all....

Something like that anyway.

This day I am....

.....feeling fall in the air, when I am not quite ready to let go of summer
.....wondering how a bee goes about dying hanging from the inside of a flower
.....fighting yet another sickness in the house, and feeling oh so tired about this current trend
.....staring at this box of peaches, and that bag of beans, and that bushel of apples and praying for the energy to come soon so they get properly preserved
.....loving that my cold room shelves, in spite of it all, are slowly filling with jars of summers harvest
....attempting homemade sauerkraut for the first time
....surprised at how much I enjoyed the noise and grit of the monster truck show (so LOUD!)
.....wowed by our giant sunflowers
.....enjoying my flowers and my boys and all the other good things in my life
.....taking a few photos to share...

Sunday Therapy

Time to lighten up I think.

Saturday Morning Therapy

The day dawns early in this house
even when there is no good reason to
except that the sun is shining
and the dog needs to pee

Loneliness seeps into these moments
so that the last ten dollars in my wallet
seems best spent on breakfast at the diner

Where tables full of men
fill the room (and my heart) with their voices
Stories of this years crops
Yesterday's golf game
Rising taxes and idiot politicians
Furnaces that needed to be fixed in the middle of the night
Today's rodeo

There is no talk of unpaid bills
cheating wives
Explaining divorce to small boys
dividing lives and kitchen utensils
Pages of to do lists
tears washing the pillow case at night

There are days when I might cringe at the lack of depth in the talk
yearn to know the real stories behind the creases around their eyes
the unspoken moments they carry in the grey of their hair

But not today
Today I need this coffee that I did not have to make
these conversations I don't have to carry
For just one hour
lost in the voices of strangers
I can be free

Random Meanderings

Why can I not put the words together

to explain that I was lost

and didn't know it

That I was never anywhere but here

I just forgot

That there is a centre to my body

that I can only feel when my feet are off the ground

How do I say that I wasn't lying when I wrote that box full of forever's

but that today the photo of my beliefs looks different

I didn't know that life is a collection of various positions

I so badly wish for a million different words for love

So I could tell each of you how much I do, and exactly how

And that maybe those "forevers" would make sense after all

Today

I found my centre here

and I loved in cartwheels

black coffee and breakfast

sticky hands and cherry kisses

We are a family with no traditions
Our dead (few that they are) leave us stumbling,
jarring into each other
fumbling
Traditions lost to church upheavals and broken relationships
Us young
Stuck in a thrift store of ideals and religions
Trying on others discarded beliefs.

But this mattered
Gathering flowers and time and memories
Telling my children what I do know
That Grandpa fell in love with her the moment he saw her
(you can see it in every photo of them)
That sparkles and stickers and fifteen page letters will always be her domain
That generosity flows deep in our blood, as does laughter and faith
And that in our world where things seem constantly to be changing
Some things will forever remain the same.

She leaned over and whispered in my ear

(Her breath laced with wild strawberries and rain)

Don't forget

Your day started with breakfast made

and a necklace too

from a little boy

loving you

Stop looking back

They are right there in front of you.

Emotions

Abundance

Its all about perspective, isn't it?

This moment

I am...
....listening to the sound of the rain on my windows and smiling at my littlest, who when asked if he would like to watch a movie, snuggled deeper into my lap and said "I just want to sit and watch the wind and the rain".  Now that is one smart boy
....on the cusp of summer's bounty with the fresh eating, late night preserving, and trying to savour every last minute of it
....finally about to begin the untangling of two lives.  Feeling sad, anxious, hopeful, relieved and jittery, but mostly terrified
....constantly ruminating on all the possibilities this next part of my life may hold
....completely enjoying my beautiful niece and her joie de vivre
....panicking, just a little, about the upcoming start of homeschooling my oldest
....trying to find the balance of learning from the past, planning for the future, and living in the moment
....wondering why I constantly put so much stock in what others may think
....cartwheeling (with a little help from friend)
....wishing you overflowing baskets of all good summery things

“For {she} had adopted the standard of the young: what there was in the moment was everything. And moments followed one another without necessarily belonging to one another.”
― D.H. Lawrence, Lady Chatterley's Lover

I just want to walk; barefooted and broken hearted
Till my feet are bleeding
till the wind blows the thoughts from my head
and I stop wanting you.
Till money starts blooming as freely as the dandelions I kick
till he changes for the sake of his children
and my baby's belly heals.

Can I walk the loneliness away and the busyness gone?

I just want to walk;
till my legs ache
till the sun burns the craziness away
and I am strong enough to say no
Till I am ok with someone not liking me if it means protecting myself
till I learn how to speak
and men with pretty words stop whispering lies to my heart.

Can I walk me stronger and you gone?

It takes me off guard everytime
As much as I see the necessity
appriciate it actually
the willing and efficient slicing
as she talks
about retirement and the weather
Tucking one more piece of my flesh into a neat plastic cup
labeled with all that is needed to connect me to the diagnosis,
but nothing that connects me to you
Forever lost into the unknown world
of labritories filled with bits and pieces of other souls.
No more flesh lost today than what has been left in the gravel of my childhood driveway
or the slight scrapes under lovers fingernails
And yet it leaves me wheepy
and lonely
Missing all those little pieces of me

“So every day
So every day
I was surrounded by the beautiful crying forth
of the ideas of God,
one of which was you.”
― Mary Oliver

This day

You just want to spew forth

the oddities of life.

Missing light fixtures

and coffee pots

Pretty red beetles munching lilies named after your child

 into tattered remnants of leaves

How angry that makes you

Or

The smell of campfire in your son's hair

Cartwheels

Overflowing and rowdy flowers in your garden

catching visitors legs and sticking secret petals in their hair

How delighted that makes you

So

You shake those words off

 in messy, rambling patterns

that no one hears save you

Send them flying and bouncing and free

No longer tangling your thoughts

placing blinders on your eyes

And eventually you can see

that you never liked that light anyway, or the coffee pot for that matter

And those beetles are just little mama's busy feeding their babies

(but you feed your baby knowledge and save them for scientific research)

You can cartwheel till your dizzy

and leave your garden as rowdy as you please

You never did want to be the same

I would not have thought it possible,

to fill the air with so much goodness.

Fresh rain

honeysuckles

wild roses

wood violets

and the unbelievably provocative scent of willow.

Why I did not lie down and breath my lungs to bursting, I do not know

Instead I walked.

Let raspberry canes and rose thorns scratch love notes on my skin.

Washed my legs in rain soaked grass and filled my shoes with puddles

Stopped often to feel this world kiss my soul

Emerged dripping from this secluded treasure onto the public walking path

Smiling ridiculously, I am sure

An older lady strolling with her dog, curiously smiled back



Sometimes I need

only to stand

wherever I am

to be blessed

-Mary Oliver-



Sticking up for myself....

..... trying to at least.

Interesting

One friend asked me what kind of life I want to lead.

Another asked me if I like trouble.

Got me pondering and thinking and analysing.

In answer to your questions,

I like interesting.

Today I Am.....

....oh so excited to see my apple trees loaded with flower buds
 ....very thankful for green
....listening to this song repeatedly, and not really sure why http://youtu.be/EsuNz4yeWLc
....completely lost on how to parent when my child snips the flower buds off a favourite plant in his anger
....enjoying the newest addition to our family
....scrubbing a thick layer of mud off the bottom of the tub after the boys bath every night
....breathing in the heady smell of the neighbour's mayday tree as often as I can
....eating avocado chocolate mousse and not feeling one bit guilty about it
....sneaking the one asparagus spear a day out of the garden before the boys get to it (and feeling guilty about it)
....listening to The BFG by Ronald Dahl in the car and enjoying it as much (if not more) than the boys
....oh so ready for this long weekend to begin

 Much love to you all today (and tomorrow too!)

My Kind of Mother, My Kind of Day

This is my kind of Mother, and my kind of day.

Boys.

Mother.

Laughter.

Sunshine.

Picnic.

Rocks.

Water.

(Today we were searching for water bugs, blue rocks, heart shaped rocks, and mud. I believe we were successful.)

Happiest Mothers day to all you wonderful mothers. 



Ode to a Sister

Mirrors
Thousands of miles apart
Reflecting thoughts and bouncing images off clouds and keys and computer screens

Tell me...
Is it still courage if I have nothing to lose and everything to gain?

You must know
You also have everything to gain
You may stand before a mirror and not know who you are; but you are exactly who you have been waiting for.

Eloquence just drips from your fingers with different words than I. 

Spring and I

I thought that Spring and I were at odds this year. 

No matched moods of excitement, birth, growth.

No unfurling of tender sprigs or sprouts reaching to the sun.

 Instead

 restlessness, anger, uncertainty, selfishness, unnerving unsteadiness.

But I forgot.

  I forgot how fierce the winds are in spring, their energy necessary for spreading seeds and cleaning debris. 

I forgot.

 I forgot the moodiness, the flush of sun burnt skin 

soothed by the sweetest smelling rain

slapped by the heavy snows

One day. 

I forgot.

  I forgot how long a seed buried deep into the soil takes to make its way up to greet life.

An Addition

He likes to sit and watch the rain.

And the birds.

I think he will fit in just fine around here.

Vulnerable

Easier said then done

Some days

Laying out for life to soak you with its sunshine

(or drench you with pelting hailstorms...)

I know, I know,

I know it all serves its purpose,

is all good in the grand scheme of things

Some days

I alternate between stomping my foot,

and succumbing to the exhaustion of it all

Great giant swings of emotional messiness

(tucked neatly away behind smiling eyes)

Life sometimes,

is easier said than done.