Monday 31 December 2012

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)
 
 


Wednesday 26 December 2012

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.

Saturday 15 December 2012

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.
 


Sunday 9 December 2012

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
 
 


Wednesday 5 December 2012

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

Thursday 8 November 2012

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
 


Wednesday 17 October 2012

Friday 21 September 2012

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.

Thursday 13 September 2012

Charlie Todd: The shared experience of absurdity

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



Saturday 8 September 2012

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
 
 
 

Friday 31 August 2012

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

Something like that anyway.

Saturday 25 August 2012

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...





Saturday 18 August 2012

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

Saturday 11 August 2012

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

Tuesday 31 July 2012

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.

Wednesday 25 July 2012

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.


Wednesday 18 July 2012

Sunday 15 July 2012

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

Wednesday 11 July 2012


“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

Monday 2 July 2012

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?

Friday 29 June 2012

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


Thursday 28 June 2012

“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


Friday 22 June 2012

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




Sunday 17 June 2012

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












Wednesday 13 June 2012

Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed
-Mary Oliver-



Sunday 20 May 2012

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.



Thursday 17 May 2012

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!)

Sunday 13 May 2012

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. 


Thursday 10 May 2012

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. 

Wednesday 9 May 2012

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.


Sunday 6 May 2012

An Addition


He likes to sit and watch the rain.
And the birds.
I think he will fit in just fine around here.

Sunday 29 April 2012

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.