I'll Be Back

I must take some time.

Really, I must find some. So I must step away from here for a bit. I cannot come here and speak of joy & be honest - lately I feel mostly emptiness, the emptiness of hope, the days becoming harder to step through, the inspirations few & far between. I cannot even see a picture for this post. I need a breath, some space, some time. It may be 2 days, it may be 2 weeks - I cannot say. I begin to Unravel with Susannah next week, and I suspect that will fill me with new ideas, new possibilities in which I can really believe, and if so, I will be back at least by then. I am full of insecurities about taking just a few days away, sure no one will be here when I return, but I must do it anyway. I suspect I will miss this more than I know & be back quickly.

See you soon.

Sooner than I think, possibly.

:)

thank you all so very, very much

Simply Simple

phones that take pictures,

floating on the water under a summer sky,

breezes,

cheerios,

green lights all the way,

automatic payments deducted from my checking account,

plants that bloom without my help,

silent nights under the stars,

strawberries,

flip-flops,

tv socks,

re-reading old books,

time with him - no conversation necessary,

the easy, easy purr of cats,

too-big sweaters,

analog clocks,

empty rooms.

Simple things.

Christina's idea for today.

Click here for more.

How simple.

join in - add to the list

Legs - July 4th

There was dancing.

and joy

Cutting Strings

If only I could.

How easy I imagine it would all be then.

It is 11:44 on a July 4th evening and I am having a conversation with myself. I have been to the lake & back, leaving before the boats headed to the middle of the lake for 360 degrees of fireworks, leaving the music behind, wanting to be home, wanting to check on Maggie - just wanting to be home. Grateful for the plate of cherries & blackberries & strawberries, but just wanting to be home. It just be's that way sometimes. I stopped & bought morning glory sparklers on my way back & the lovely, lovely Katie & I drew circles in the hot Texas night before she headed upstairs and I headed in. A quiet 4th this year, not unwanted, a 4th that seemed to need some peace, some silence. And so I sit here propped against a mountain of white pillows, the sound of the air conditioner keeping me company, and I feel a bit of contentment begin to settle in. Just a bit, but a bit is much welcomed.

I would like to carry no thoughts. Or perhaps just fewer thoughts, none seeming impossible. They are weighing me down, all these thoughts, making it impossible to float on water or fly into the sky. I see myself in that sky, floating on my back in the air, and attached to my arms & legs & fingers & toes are hundreds of tiny thoughts, anchors caught in the treetops and on telephone wires. I need to start snipping some lines, jettisoning old cargo, letting some things go. I don't mean Maggie, I don't mean important things, I mean things & even relationships that have outlived their usefulness; people with whom I no longer have anything in common, who no longer feel right in my life. Life is too short, Mary once told me, and if the movie is bad, you should get up & leave. A new goal. A new bit of unfurling that I thought would feel sad, but surprisingly does not. It feels freeing.

Next week I begin to Unravel.

Perfect timing.

i lost a friend today - my choice, his actions. i can breathe.

July as an almost teenage girl

She has blue toenails & these green fingernails

and

her eyes remind me

that tomorrow I must buy sparklers.

She is dressed like July,

like the heat of this summer sky,

the cool of the lake a few inches below the surface,

the grass under her feet as she runs for the water.

She is spinning like fireworks;

don't let those silent hands fool you.

she is growing up too fast

A Little Politics & 2 Extra-Strength Tylenol

Just a quickie.

An image that makes me laugh,

my feet a bit swollen

from standing in just a tad-too-tight flip-flops,

Maggie blending with the rock wall.

A chameleon.

Overlooking the creek outside the front door.

A little dizzy-making from this angle.

Today is a day for the hospital,

my mother having a heart thingy done.

Should be no big thang, y'all,

but I am tense nonetheless.

I do tense well.

And don't tell anyone,

but I took 2 Tylenol - gasp!! - what a radical I am!

2 500 mg. quick-release tablets.

Soon to be gone,

Soon to be only 325 mg. tablets,

and then I will have to take 3.

:)

And yes, I normally say no to politics,

but I break the rule today.

It is so much silliness,

or it would be if it weren't so scary.

Government be gone from my personal life, I say.

But every morning I turn on the news

and find something else to make me,

yes,

tense.

I took a hot shower last night,

a long one,

assuming that soon that too will be stopped,

will be regulated;

that I will be allowed only x amount per gallons per day,

and only x amount of that will be allowed to be hot.

I shall have to report to a government employee somewhere
and if I am too clean,

well,

there will be fines,

there will be consequences!

Forgive me.

But the Tylenol thing?

Possibly the straw that breaks the camel's back

here on this blog.

We will see.

But today, politics.

Tomorrow I will probably revert back to my rules.

All I ask is for politeness in the comments.

If there are any.

:)

gotta go

Night

She won't come in, so I went out.

And rediscovered the night.

And why she won't come in.

I have been full of tears for her, full of sorry-for-myself, full of grieving for an event that has yet to occur, full of prayers, full of everything but seeing this gift of time I still have. Sunday night I went to bed and cried, knowing she will never hop up in that bed next to me again - she is no longer interested; she has found places outside where she'd rather spend her time, and although she wants me near her, she doesn't want it enough to waste what precious moments she has left. If I step outside, she will come to me, wanting her ears rubbed, her back rubbed, wanting to stand next to me, but she seldom follows me in, and when she does, it is usually a short visit.

So Sunday night. In the midst of my tears, I thought she is just outside this wall, and yes, it is midnight, but she is just outside this wall, she is laying in the grass behind Katie's car. Join her. So I did. I took a towel and joined her in the night, made a square pallet on which to sit and joined her, next to the grass, on the driveway. She was up and circling me, rubbing against me, happy, happy that I was out there with her, ending up standing next to me, just standing, touching. Side by side. And I rediscovered the night, the coolness after a daytime of 100+ degrees, the deafening sound of cicadas and what I assume to be tree frogs; I will have to ask. The moonlight. The darkness. The breezes. It was magnificent. When I at last went to bed, I slept like a baby.

Last night I dug out my white & blue striped beach chair, one of those that squoosh together like an umbrella, that hold you cocooned inches off the ground, and found the night again with her. She was perched on the wall of the footbridge that crosses the creek; I nestled as close as I could, and she was down from her spot, circling me again, finding her spot next to my right hand, purring loudly. Again the serenade of seemingly thousands of cicadas, breezes that whispered of yesterday's shower, a half moon bright in the sky behind us. I watched a neighbor across the street switching channels on his tv - impatiently flipping from one station to the next, then, finding nothing, switching the thing off; darkness. A man turned the corner, walking who knows where, talking on his cell phone, totally unaware we were there. Maggie moved closer, and I remembered a photograph taken by the ever-wonderful Michael 4 years ago. I was sick, but I didn't really know it yet - it was springtime, before Easter. Feeling feverish & chilled, I abandoned the couch for the hammock in the back yard, needing the sunshine on my skin, needing the warmth. Maggie was outside & came to me, as she always did when I lay in the hammock, and took her usual spot on the grass below me. When I fell asleep, Michael took a picture of the two of us - I'd forgotten that picture existed; my mother has a copy on her refrigerator. When I see it, I always remember how sick I became, a fever that lasted a month, a couple of stays in the hospital, and I turn away. But now I see Maggie. Coming to me, to be near.

I look back on this blog that was to be about art, and I re-read posts, and it seems that it has been about loss, about letting go, almost from the very beginning. I wonder if I sensed all that when Emmatree was born - if I knew I would need this space to gather myself together. Or is loss just a constant? If I look back, that seems more likely - that life is about birth & beginnings, but just as surely about endings & goodbyes. I feel empty of poetry when I talk about Maggie; it feels as if I used it all up with Mary. I put my fingers over my heart and feel this pain again. Still. This heartache. And I feel I should apologize, should say I'm sorry that there are no flowers here lately - but there is life here. And that means there is also death, and I hate just saying that word, I want to pretty it up, I want to say there are endings, there are passings, I want to say anything but that word, but death is what it is.

This summer will be about Maggie.

I will hold her near.

I will sit with her in the night and watch the stars.

please stay with me, don't leave