I have been invited to attend something different…..it is a Reveal. Now for those of you not in-the-know or who don’t follow any ghost hunters’ type of program, this is where the hunters come in with their findings after having checked out a particular location.
The particular building is an old one, having been located on that spot for over a hundred years, so it stood to reason there might possibly be spirits from another time….The building was formerly a church, now used by the town’s Historical Society as well as various community groups as a meeting hall, some of whom involve children. Once such group has had odd feelings/sensations when going upstairs into the church proper by themselves.
In any case, this sounds like it could be interesting, on many levels. For starters, I was raised as a Catholic, and ghosts are not something usually accepted in that faith – angels as messengers of God yes, spirits of long-departed persons no. Now, add to this that over the years I have sidestepped some of the Church teachings of my youth because I found them to be close-minded and out-of-touch with the common man…their lack of acceptance of who/what a person is with their insistence that the only RIGHT way was theirs, has made it very difficult for me to claim myself as a fully practicing member of the community. I tend to accept people for whom and what they are, irregardless of color/gender/creed, and yeah, that goes to having a belief in the supernatural and what are considered to be pagan faiths. As far as I am concerned, it does not matter what your God or Goddess is called….all are names for the same being(s). Seeing God only as the one you cannot see who expects obedience to all His dictates is a bit hard to swallow right now….Seeing him/her as that spirit embodied by the earth renewing itself and sustaining you, THAT makes more sense to me. And how, you wonder, does this connect to my attending a Reveal? A number of reasons including curiosity – who, when, why, etc; education – paranormal study is a bit of science and faith, and philosophy – understanding the undercurrents of why a spirit chose or was caused to remain, what message they may have for us, how is their past connected to our future, and more importantly, will our belief or lack of such cause their feelings toward us to change?
So…will I accept this invitation? Will I go to satisfy a curiosity, or to connect with something unseen? Will I find answers to the un-asked questions that I keep buried deep? Will attending change me?....hard to say, but certainly something to think on a little more, and perhaps to attend….we shall have to wait and see…..
Friday, November 5, 2010
Thursday, September 16, 2010
..there's gold in them thar' ......
It's morning here, and the usual rush of activity in the house goes on...daughter trying to get her things ready for school but seemingly too busy listening to her iPod to really get anything else accomplished...dogs underfoot alternating between people, hoping that someONE will feed them their breakfast...sounds of traffic outside including the rumbling roar of the schoolbus as it heads up the hill to start it's first run of the day...And me, I stand at the back door with coffee in hand, enjoying the growing glow of sunlight on the treetops......a few moments in time is all that glow lasts, yet it is enough to calm the disquiet and allow me to start my day on a bright note....so here's to your starting your day and savoring the gold......
Saturday, September 4, 2010
it's a-maize-ing
It never ceases to astound me what joyful treasures there are to be found in the mundane.....take for instance, the back yard, severely in need of mowing. The hubster and I just realized this weekend that we have a rather unusual if somewhat surprising piece of greenery growing in this yard.....
As you can plainly see, not your everyday variety of lawn grass, is it? How it got there is unknown......it's another one of those little surprises we have come across. The other one was a wildly overgrown sand pile (buried at the back end of a working sand-pit) that had a vegetable garden growing in it, complete with green tomatoes (at least 6 plants),several vines (not sure if squash, melon, or cucumber), I believe there was at least one pepper plant, and several stalks the hubby thought were corn until I looked at the tops. When I later went online to scope out grains, I was able to identify it as millet....Not sure where the seeds for all of these came from, another little mystery to ponder during the dog days of summer....
As you can plainly see, not your everyday variety of lawn grass, is it? How it got there is unknown......it's another one of those little surprises we have come across. The other one was a wildly overgrown sand pile (buried at the back end of a working sand-pit) that had a vegetable garden growing in it, complete with green tomatoes (at least 6 plants),several vines (not sure if squash, melon, or cucumber), I believe there was at least one pepper plant, and several stalks the hubby thought were corn until I looked at the tops. When I later went online to scope out grains, I was able to identify it as millet....Not sure where the seeds for all of these came from, another little mystery to ponder during the dog days of summer....
Monday, August 30, 2010
the color purple
...Purple...such an interesting color in all its varied hues....and one that seems to play a recurring role in my life this year...
Take for instance, the flash of a purple thistle flower seen while riding along a trail, which on repeating that trip fails to be found anywhere. Or the purple stain of crushed blackberries when you pick a too-ripe berry that squishes between your fingers. Or the purple bruise you get when you slip into an unseen gully reaching for those little fruits. Or the purple of elderberry jelly my hubby had with breakfast. Or the purple shadows that come with the sunset.......Hmmmm.....purple.....
With all of these 'subtle' hints I've have been getting, I believe I will need to dye some fiber purple.....and, since I'm in the process of spinning up some black alpaca for a fair-isle sweater, I think a touch of purple in its magenta-pink hue will be just the thing to make it sing. I know I have several shades of white, cream, and light fawn alpaca fibers that will look awesome in this color...what you do think ?
Take for instance, the flash of a purple thistle flower seen while riding along a trail, which on repeating that trip fails to be found anywhere. Or the purple stain of crushed blackberries when you pick a too-ripe berry that squishes between your fingers. Or the purple bruise you get when you slip into an unseen gully reaching for those little fruits. Or the purple of elderberry jelly my hubby had with breakfast. Or the purple shadows that come with the sunset.......Hmmmm.....purple.....
With all of these 'subtle' hints I've have been getting, I believe I will need to dye some fiber purple.....and, since I'm in the process of spinning up some black alpaca for a fair-isle sweater, I think a touch of purple in its magenta-pink hue will be just the thing to make it sing. I know I have several shades of white, cream, and light fawn alpaca fibers that will look awesome in this color...what you do think ?
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Berry-time ! .. and the Circle of Life
It's been an absolutely wonderful weekend...blue skies, bright sun, slight breeze...all in all, a great weekend to be out and about in the great outdoors. We had already noticed the abundance of green unripened fruit in the blackberry brambles this summer, and with it being a bumper crop in the works, I persuaded DH that this year we needed to pick enough to make a batch of blackberry wine...we need 15 pounds for the 5-gallon carboy....so, earlier in the week my daughter and I had been out and picked several pounds – I did manage to get 3 pounds in the freezer and left the rest for munching.....she managed to demolish the remaining 1.5 pounds in a day, leaving DH somewhat disappointed as he likes to eat them as well, so he had to go scope out the back field and did bring home another bucket full...Anyway, once the sun was no longer directly overhead yesterday, the three of us went out to pick more fruit – came home with another 6 pounds, and planned to head out early Sunday to pick more before the sun started beating down on us again. It's unbelievably incredible the amount of fruit out there...you start picking on a couple of stalks, and every time you turn elsewhere, or bend down, or move a branch, you find more and more and more....by the time we called it quits for today and headed home, washed off what we brought home (each of us had a bucket to start the morning with), weighed it and packaged up what we needed....and yes, still managed to leave 3 pounds of blackberries in the fridge for eating and to make smoothies with tonight. Total count of fruit harvested this weekend: 18.25 pounds....yes, eighteen plus....and we could have continued to pick if our buckets hadn't all been full .....
Being out in the woods and fields picking fruit is in and of itself a great way to spend the day....add to that the fact we never left our property, we heard/saw evidence of the multitude of wildlife that we know is there (and I am sure with our crisscrossing the berry fields, spooked several of the smaller creatures such as the mice and squirrels, a fact that did not go unnoticed by our newest neighbor, a small hawk). For that matter, this morning at one point I left the field and wandered down an old trail and further back into the woods....told my hubby later on that I had heard something “purring” at one point while I was stopped. Now, given the fact that this is a ways out and in woods where there is known to be numerous assorted sizes of predators, I highly doubt that it was someone's family pet....and we know for a fact that there is a bobcat, or family of, living in the immediate vicinity. Was I worried?...no...a purring cat is a contented cat, so since I was not disrupting a hunt or getting into a rock pile that could potentially hide a den, I think the big cat just watched me go about my business and left me to it without showing itself....Because I know we have these in the area (along with fox, weasel/fisher, hawk, eagle, coyote, and occasional bear), I am very conscious of where I go and keep my ears and eyes alert to what is around me as the last thing you want to do is come up unaware on a mother bear with cubs. So, other than my encounter with the unseen cat, the hawk flew over our heads several times to see if we had jumped anything of interest, and we did see a small red fox at the edge of the sandpit...yeah, the hunting for our local predators is fairly decent. There is abundant small rodents, rabbits, grouse and partridge, raccoon, porcupine, beaver, turkeys, deer, and moose.
The circle of life...we find evidence of it every time we head out into the back woods...occasional small skulls after they have been bleached by the sun, antler scrapings on saplings, multitude of hoof prints crossing the old railroad bed near a known wild apple tree that quickly show small and large deer as well as the occasional moose (several sizes of these as well)....we have also chanced to find the partially eaten remains of a deer or moose on occasion near the trail (found usually because of the smell emanating from it) which because of it's size had to have been brought down by something fairly fast or large, which ultimately becomes food for many of the smaller predators once the hunter has had his fill.....Even the plant life shows the pattern of life and death....what once was a great open field is now not quite so wide, the small saplings that used to line the edge have grown tremendously and now form a canopy above the slower-growing plants...DH and I were just talking about that this week while walking down the old railroad bed about how we could 'see' into the woods whereas we had not been able to do so several years ago......the forest is growing up, the undergrowth that had originally clung to life after the forest was originally logged – this has reached up and taken hold of their position as the next generation of future logging, all that remains as undergrowth now is that which thrives in the cool and damp beneath the canopy....the ferns and moss, and the baby trees that need the protection from the weather that now shelter under the parent trees .....life at the edge of the woods as we see and understand it, each plant or animal or bird, all following their own cycle of life that may or may not culminate in their landing on our dinner plate or heating our house ........
Being out in the woods and fields picking fruit is in and of itself a great way to spend the day....add to that the fact we never left our property, we heard/saw evidence of the multitude of wildlife that we know is there (and I am sure with our crisscrossing the berry fields, spooked several of the smaller creatures such as the mice and squirrels, a fact that did not go unnoticed by our newest neighbor, a small hawk). For that matter, this morning at one point I left the field and wandered down an old trail and further back into the woods....told my hubby later on that I had heard something “purring” at one point while I was stopped. Now, given the fact that this is a ways out and in woods where there is known to be numerous assorted sizes of predators, I highly doubt that it was someone's family pet....and we know for a fact that there is a bobcat, or family of, living in the immediate vicinity. Was I worried?...no...a purring cat is a contented cat, so since I was not disrupting a hunt or getting into a rock pile that could potentially hide a den, I think the big cat just watched me go about my business and left me to it without showing itself....Because I know we have these in the area (along with fox, weasel/fisher, hawk, eagle, coyote, and occasional bear), I am very conscious of where I go and keep my ears and eyes alert to what is around me as the last thing you want to do is come up unaware on a mother bear with cubs. So, other than my encounter with the unseen cat, the hawk flew over our heads several times to see if we had jumped anything of interest, and we did see a small red fox at the edge of the sandpit...yeah, the hunting for our local predators is fairly decent. There is abundant small rodents, rabbits, grouse and partridge, raccoon, porcupine, beaver, turkeys, deer, and moose.
The circle of life...we find evidence of it every time we head out into the back woods...occasional small skulls after they have been bleached by the sun, antler scrapings on saplings, multitude of hoof prints crossing the old railroad bed near a known wild apple tree that quickly show small and large deer as well as the occasional moose (several sizes of these as well)....we have also chanced to find the partially eaten remains of a deer or moose on occasion near the trail (found usually because of the smell emanating from it) which because of it's size had to have been brought down by something fairly fast or large, which ultimately becomes food for many of the smaller predators once the hunter has had his fill.....Even the plant life shows the pattern of life and death....what once was a great open field is now not quite so wide, the small saplings that used to line the edge have grown tremendously and now form a canopy above the slower-growing plants...DH and I were just talking about that this week while walking down the old railroad bed about how we could 'see' into the woods whereas we had not been able to do so several years ago......the forest is growing up, the undergrowth that had originally clung to life after the forest was originally logged – this has reached up and taken hold of their position as the next generation of future logging, all that remains as undergrowth now is that which thrives in the cool and damp beneath the canopy....the ferns and moss, and the baby trees that need the protection from the weather that now shelter under the parent trees .....life at the edge of the woods as we see and understand it, each plant or animal or bird, all following their own cycle of life that may or may not culminate in their landing on our dinner plate or heating our house ........
Thursday, August 12, 2010
the realm of possibility
Found something interesting last night while reading….for a change, just reading for the sake of enjoyment, in this case a book I had read some time back but recently started re-reading. It always amazes me that in doing so, something new ‘clicks’ and makes the mind race in new directions….To preface this, I ought to tell you that I am a huge fan of the King Arthur/Camelot/Merlin novels – fantasy/magic/romance….what more could one ask for? In any case, what I am currently reading is “The Mists of Avalon” by Marion Zimmer Bradley and enjoying it immensely. Came across this passage that was supposed to have been instructions from the Druids to the young priestesses of Avalon…”..If you would have the message of the Gods to direct your life, look for that which repeats, again and again; for this is the message given by the Gods, the karmic lesson you much learn for this incarnation. It comes again and again until you have made it part of your soul and your enduring spirit…”
Wow…there is power in those words...”…that which repeats, again and again…” All too often something happens in our lives that we, for what-ever reason are not looking at it beyond the surface projection. Take for example running into a friend you haven’t seen for some time but everything clicks into place like no time at all has parted you. The conversation picks up where it left off…the point in your relationship has neither stagnated nor rescinded into the distant past, it just is and moves forward from here. You connect with someone you knew through work, someone who had jokingly (you thought) said you needed to come work for him…..now you start to wonder at the wisdom of this thought when he returns and again proffers the same thought.
So, is there some truth to these words found within a book of pure fiction?..or is it fiction? How many times do we unconsciously or even consciously, refuse to see the pattern emerging before our eyes? Is it possible that something exists beyond the normal scope of things that moves us towards something or someone, and for whatever reason we deny this pattern of events? Is the truth beyond our scope of imagination? Are we too level-headed to allow the non-rational to take hold??
…and there you have it…I accept the fact that there are things/beings beyond this plane of existence…I am learning to listen to, and to watch for, the clues that come my way. In the faith that I was raised in, this would not be an acceptable alternative, to follow or believe in what used to be called ‘the Old Ways’….but there is something to the earth magik’s, and listening to the message resonating from the ground beneath our feet and the skies above us…..what patterns are we missing that has been repeating for some time now, who’s call continues to grow stronger because we have not heeded it as of yet? What changes could be wrought in our lives if we stopped and listened, just this once…?
Wow…there is power in those words...”…that which repeats, again and again…” All too often something happens in our lives that we, for what-ever reason are not looking at it beyond the surface projection. Take for example running into a friend you haven’t seen for some time but everything clicks into place like no time at all has parted you. The conversation picks up where it left off…the point in your relationship has neither stagnated nor rescinded into the distant past, it just is and moves forward from here. You connect with someone you knew through work, someone who had jokingly (you thought) said you needed to come work for him…..now you start to wonder at the wisdom of this thought when he returns and again proffers the same thought.
So, is there some truth to these words found within a book of pure fiction?..or is it fiction? How many times do we unconsciously or even consciously, refuse to see the pattern emerging before our eyes? Is it possible that something exists beyond the normal scope of things that moves us towards something or someone, and for whatever reason we deny this pattern of events? Is the truth beyond our scope of imagination? Are we too level-headed to allow the non-rational to take hold??
…and there you have it…I accept the fact that there are things/beings beyond this plane of existence…I am learning to listen to, and to watch for, the clues that come my way. In the faith that I was raised in, this would not be an acceptable alternative, to follow or believe in what used to be called ‘the Old Ways’….but there is something to the earth magik’s, and listening to the message resonating from the ground beneath our feet and the skies above us…..what patterns are we missing that has been repeating for some time now, who’s call continues to grow stronger because we have not heeded it as of yet? What changes could be wrought in our lives if we stopped and listened, just this once…?
Saturday, August 7, 2010
the Tattoo
Tattoos are very interesting things. When you see someone with one, the mind starts wondering what it is, does it symbolize something or was it just because everyone else had one? …does it say something about the owner, or it is just an arbitrary image picked at random because it fit the space?...does it have a mate on someone else’s body like a name or the other half of a Mizpah coin? …are they just a single item or part of an ever-expanding complex of images?
My two best friends and I had decided we were going to get a tattoo when we turned 50…well, he went ahead and got one to add to his collection; she and I are still debating it, talking stage still, wondering about the cost, when to do this, where to put it, etc….and yes, we are all OVER 50 now, but I figure if my mom could get her’s at 67, I have some time..lol.
A tattoo is a very personal thing, for me at least. It needs to say something about ME, who I am, what I stand for, what my interest(s) are….and by this, nothing run-of-the-mill, ordinary, artsy-fartsy, carbon copy of some-one else’s…..So, where do I begin? Because when all is said and done, the thinking has been ongoing for some time now. I have definite ideas of what I would like to have, just not finalized to any one image – and that is all I plan to have is the one….so, who am I , really? I have bits of all kinds of images dancing in my head, so here is Me trying to make sense of it all…. Simple, clean lines, very straightforward and uncluttered, with gentle curves as opposed to angular/boxy lines. Spiders, simply because I am a spinner. Angels and/or fairies, because I have a fascination for the mystical/mythical beings that inhabit our world. Rocks, representing stability and solidness but sometimes hiding their beauty within like geodes. Celtic knots, the intricate weaving of cords that look at once solid and impenetrable yet easily pulled open and apart, representing the ties that bind us together and how much are lives are intertwined. Trees and/or plants, what symbolize life and growing things. Stick figures of people or hands enclosed in a heart reflecting my love of family and friends. An image of diverging paths/roads, because I have always followed my own path -- as my sister said, walked to the beat of a different drummer – and the family euphemism of my “taking the scenic path’ because I got lost (yes, I took the wrong way to get somewhere, but we eventually despite the 80-mile round trip misstep, got to where we needed/wanted to be)……
See what I mean ? …not such an easy task to define ME in a single image, there are simply too many facets comprising the Me that is ME….So, the thinking and reflecting on these images continues as I try to make some sense of it all, as well as come up with a way to pull them all together in a cohesive unit that truly will say ….. Me.
My two best friends and I had decided we were going to get a tattoo when we turned 50…well, he went ahead and got one to add to his collection; she and I are still debating it, talking stage still, wondering about the cost, when to do this, where to put it, etc….and yes, we are all OVER 50 now, but I figure if my mom could get her’s at 67, I have some time..lol.
A tattoo is a very personal thing, for me at least. It needs to say something about ME, who I am, what I stand for, what my interest(s) are….and by this, nothing run-of-the-mill, ordinary, artsy-fartsy, carbon copy of some-one else’s…..So, where do I begin? Because when all is said and done, the thinking has been ongoing for some time now. I have definite ideas of what I would like to have, just not finalized to any one image – and that is all I plan to have is the one….so, who am I , really? I have bits of all kinds of images dancing in my head, so here is Me trying to make sense of it all…. Simple, clean lines, very straightforward and uncluttered, with gentle curves as opposed to angular/boxy lines. Spiders, simply because I am a spinner. Angels and/or fairies, because I have a fascination for the mystical/mythical beings that inhabit our world. Rocks, representing stability and solidness but sometimes hiding their beauty within like geodes. Celtic knots, the intricate weaving of cords that look at once solid and impenetrable yet easily pulled open and apart, representing the ties that bind us together and how much are lives are intertwined. Trees and/or plants, what symbolize life and growing things. Stick figures of people or hands enclosed in a heart reflecting my love of family and friends. An image of diverging paths/roads, because I have always followed my own path -- as my sister said, walked to the beat of a different drummer – and the family euphemism of my “taking the scenic path’ because I got lost (yes, I took the wrong way to get somewhere, but we eventually despite the 80-mile round trip misstep, got to where we needed/wanted to be)……
See what I mean ? …not such an easy task to define ME in a single image, there are simply too many facets comprising the Me that is ME….So, the thinking and reflecting on these images continues as I try to make some sense of it all, as well as come up with a way to pull them all together in a cohesive unit that truly will say ….. Me.
Saturday, July 17, 2010
fairy name !
...found a link on a mail list to discover your Fairy name...all right, I'll bite, might be interesting to see what the generator comes up with based on my name....
Your fairy is called Gossamer Moonfrost
She is the moon goddess's messenger.
She lives in spiderwebbed wonderlands and insect grottos.
She is only seen during the first snow of winter.
She wears tiny black spiders on her dresses. She has beautiful blue butterfly wings.
Get your free fairy name here!
...how very neat is that!...only seen during the first snow of winter, and I was a winter baby too!...and now I spin, so keeping spiders near is a good sign.
Your fairy is called Gossamer Moonfrost
She is the moon goddess's messenger.
She lives in spiderwebbed wonderlands and insect grottos.
She is only seen during the first snow of winter.
She wears tiny black spiders on her dresses. She has beautiful blue butterfly wings.
Get your free fairy name here!
...how very neat is that!...only seen during the first snow of winter, and I was a winter baby too!...and now I spin, so keeping spiders near is a good sign.
Friday, July 9, 2010
If you could see what I see
Seems like it was just yestahdee I walked through my house, though it is very apparent I must have been sleepin’ some-where ‘cause I certainly would not have set up my house this-a-way…oh my stars, who put avocado green and pumpkin orange in my kitchen ?! …where did my nice solid wooden ice chest go to, I wonner….and all those doors on the walls ! …and how is a body supposed to sit on them spindly little chairs? Couldn’t have been very big folk living here….
There are people walking thru my house, one of whom has a pin on his jacket that gives his name and somethin’ that looks like ‘reel-ter’…I’m not knowing what that is, but he is talking up my house somethin’ fierce – “…..hand-turned wooden moldings throughout the house…..” and somethin’ that sounds suspishusly like “..shabby sheeke..”, what-ever that might be, though it do seem to be takin’ the young-folk’s attention. I ‘member when my man made those door-frames, he did like to work with his wood, said it felt alive in his hands. Me, I am thinkin’ he had imbibed a little too heavy that day…..and the man did like his lickor, tho’ he tried to hide it from me. We used ta’ have a shed out back with an outhouse attached to the side. My man hid his wiskey bottles there so I wouldn’t find them, but I knew where they were, and if I was thinkin’ he was imbibin’ a little too much I took steps to fix that…..I tried puttin’ sand in the bottle a coupla’ times, filled ‘em with water, put bugs and werms in one, ‘til I saw the bottle already had a werm…the smell of that one near made my eyes burn…when that didna’ work I took ta’ dumpin’ the bottles so they’d be empty….when I’d had enuff of his drinkin’, I brought the bottle in and smashed it on his head – yup, my man decided it was safer to stay sober after that one. I still chuckle over that one…made my man clean up my floor and scrub the lickor off’en it afterwards….he ne’re took another drop after that.
But where was I …? Ah, yes, visitin’ my house…strange that I can go thru the kitchen wall and be in the pantry…a bit dusty it is, and cobwebs, and …yuck, mouse droppin’s beneat’ the shelf…some-body hasna’ been here in a good bit if the critters have taken residence. The top shelf still has my ole butter churn and my most favoritest skillet made of black iron that my man gifted me with one year…that pan was some hevvee but it cooked so good…..as I go back thru the wall my kitchen, my good stove is gone. When my man and me first lived there we have a big wood stove that had a well in the side of it for heating water…the boys knew they hadta’ scrub their faces and hands ‘afore they came to dinner and lack of hot water was not an exkusse ! So, the folks are still walkin’ thru my house and talkin’ with the reel-ter about the size of the rooms and age of the strukcher, and how much land came with it, and how much could they talk the owner to come down on price….Land sakes alive…who’d a’ thunk my house would genn-ah-rate such talk? They seem nice folk, a bit long in the tooth perhaps as I dinna’ think there are chillun’ livin’ with ‘em….The man is talkin’ ‘bout settin’ up a work-shop – seems he does things with wood like my man useta’, and the woman is sayin’ somethin’ ‘bout the big room in front up-stairs that has a big winder in it now, somethin’ to the effect of “..good light for my quiltin’…” so perhaps wont be too bad. I followed the folks down the hallway. What useta’ be the babee’s room now has what the reel-ter called an “..n-clozed tub an’ show’r…..porcelin’ base…original claw-foot…” – well, at least the ones who put it there knew qualitee. The lady is sayin’ that it smelled like babee powder…’course it did, I was very liberal with that wit’ my babee’s, and I blew some off the winder when they came in the room….
{..fast-forward several months…}
I hadta’ walk thru my house again…time to say good-bye to it I am supposin’…the man and woman who I had seen wit’ the reel-ter are in the house now. They still have lots of boxes to open it seems, but the room up-stairs with the big winder with all the light is in use all ready….there are new shelves with fabrics – yes many fabrics of so many colors…and the woman is hummin’ as she cuts and stitches and cuts some more…..there is a big wicker rocker in the room now too…with a quilt hangin’ over the back…and an orange tabby-cat in the chair lookin’ at me. His eyes are bright and clear and he sees me. He knows I am here and mean ‘im no harm…it is a good room, a happy place – the woman has seen to that…. I can be happy knowin’ my house is in good hands now…..time for me to be movin’ on I am supposin’….
There are people walking thru my house, one of whom has a pin on his jacket that gives his name and somethin’ that looks like ‘reel-ter’…I’m not knowing what that is, but he is talking up my house somethin’ fierce – “…..hand-turned wooden moldings throughout the house…..” and somethin’ that sounds suspishusly like “..shabby sheeke..”, what-ever that might be, though it do seem to be takin’ the young-folk’s attention. I ‘member when my man made those door-frames, he did like to work with his wood, said it felt alive in his hands. Me, I am thinkin’ he had imbibed a little too heavy that day…..and the man did like his lickor, tho’ he tried to hide it from me. We used ta’ have a shed out back with an outhouse attached to the side. My man hid his wiskey bottles there so I wouldn’t find them, but I knew where they were, and if I was thinkin’ he was imbibin’ a little too much I took steps to fix that…..I tried puttin’ sand in the bottle a coupla’ times, filled ‘em with water, put bugs and werms in one, ‘til I saw the bottle already had a werm…the smell of that one near made my eyes burn…when that didna’ work I took ta’ dumpin’ the bottles so they’d be empty….when I’d had enuff of his drinkin’, I brought the bottle in and smashed it on his head – yup, my man decided it was safer to stay sober after that one. I still chuckle over that one…made my man clean up my floor and scrub the lickor off’en it afterwards….he ne’re took another drop after that.
But where was I …? Ah, yes, visitin’ my house…strange that I can go thru the kitchen wall and be in the pantry…a bit dusty it is, and cobwebs, and …yuck, mouse droppin’s beneat’ the shelf…some-body hasna’ been here in a good bit if the critters have taken residence. The top shelf still has my ole butter churn and my most favoritest skillet made of black iron that my man gifted me with one year…that pan was some hevvee but it cooked so good…..as I go back thru the wall my kitchen, my good stove is gone. When my man and me first lived there we have a big wood stove that had a well in the side of it for heating water…the boys knew they hadta’ scrub their faces and hands ‘afore they came to dinner and lack of hot water was not an exkusse ! So, the folks are still walkin’ thru my house and talkin’ with the reel-ter about the size of the rooms and age of the strukcher, and how much land came with it, and how much could they talk the owner to come down on price….Land sakes alive…who’d a’ thunk my house would genn-ah-rate such talk? They seem nice folk, a bit long in the tooth perhaps as I dinna’ think there are chillun’ livin’ with ‘em….The man is talkin’ ‘bout settin’ up a work-shop – seems he does things with wood like my man useta’, and the woman is sayin’ somethin’ ‘bout the big room in front up-stairs that has a big winder in it now, somethin’ to the effect of “..good light for my quiltin’…” so perhaps wont be too bad. I followed the folks down the hallway. What useta’ be the babee’s room now has what the reel-ter called an “..n-clozed tub an’ show’r…..porcelin’ base…original claw-foot…” – well, at least the ones who put it there knew qualitee. The lady is sayin’ that it smelled like babee powder…’course it did, I was very liberal with that wit’ my babee’s, and I blew some off the winder when they came in the room….
{..fast-forward several months…}
I hadta’ walk thru my house again…time to say good-bye to it I am supposin’…the man and woman who I had seen wit’ the reel-ter are in the house now. They still have lots of boxes to open it seems, but the room up-stairs with the big winder with all the light is in use all ready….there are new shelves with fabrics – yes many fabrics of so many colors…and the woman is hummin’ as she cuts and stitches and cuts some more…..there is a big wicker rocker in the room now too…with a quilt hangin’ over the back…and an orange tabby-cat in the chair lookin’ at me. His eyes are bright and clear and he sees me. He knows I am here and mean ‘im no harm…it is a good room, a happy place – the woman has seen to that…. I can be happy knowin’ my house is in good hands now…..time for me to be movin’ on I am supposin’….
Monday, July 5, 2010
Independence Day
We went to a local private inn that was hosting fireworks. Always a sight to see from the top of the hill where the Inn sits over the lake...and there was a bit of breeze at the end that blew the smoke back over us.
We get to celebrate our independence because of boys and girls in uniform, and you often see the phrase "Freedom isn't free", and it's not, it is bought at the cost of a life sometimes.....Thank a Veteran, or a current Military member for their service, and yes, this is something near-and-dear to my heart: My father served in the Navy; my brother was in the Marines; my husband was on board a Navy vessel during the Gulf War; my eldest son is the National Guard; and my younger son is in the Army having already served in Iraq once and deploying there again this year...This proud Maman is thankful for what they have done, are doing, and will do to allow us the freedom to continue to celebrate our independence......
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Awesome!
Found something in my reading earlier today, and it is "awesome" ..... just saying the word sounds like it is a B-I-G something, and in truth the concept of awesomeness, is pretty grand in and of itself... The author's name is Neil Pasricha, and his blog is <1000awesomethings.com> ...it's a pretty kewl place, a different entry for every day, that one awesome thing he finds every day to talk about, be it so very tiny and humble to something magnificent, just that one thing that makes you stop and re-examine what you thought you knew. He now has a book out as well, which I will be looking into obtaining for my summer reading forays.....
Imagine, if you will, where your mind will go when you stop for a moment to examine how awesome something is: the sun shining through ice-covered tree branches, the sound of a babbling brook that is hidden behind a wall of trees, the gas guage that reads "E" but still seems to have enough gas to get you home, the doe and fawn on the side of the highway as you drive on by.......
Oh, the treasures to be found when you slow down long enough to 'smell the roses' .....
Imagine, if you will, where your mind will go when you stop for a moment to examine how awesome something is: the sun shining through ice-covered tree branches, the sound of a babbling brook that is hidden behind a wall of trees, the gas guage that reads "E" but still seems to have enough gas to get you home, the doe and fawn on the side of the highway as you drive on by.......
Oh, the treasures to be found when you slow down long enough to 'smell the roses' .....
Monday, June 21, 2010
a time for deep thoughts
Corri sat beside her bedroom window pensively staring out. The late afternoon sun fell upon her face as it bounced and slid over the gently moving surface of the lake. Here and there she could see tips of white as the breeze pushed up the water, disrupting the smooth glassy surface that reflected the brilliant blue sky dotted with white puffs. It was nice to just sit and let her mind wander…the past few weeks had been unbelievably busy to the point where she had absolutely no time to herself. Dad had just been moved to a care facility – his Alzheimer’s had gotten so bad that Mum could no longer keep up with or keep track of him. Everyone in the family had pitched in when they could, but it fell to Mum and Corri as the youngest who still lived at home, to do the bigger share…Sometimes he knew who they were though most times did not, and Corri knew how difficult that was for Mum who had been his everything for so long to suddenly become his nothing. It was done now, he was in capable hands at the Home, and Corri had taken her Mum here to the campground so that she too could start the healing process….Mum hadn’t wanted to go, how could she leave him in an unfamiliar place with strangers ?? It had been surprisingly easy to leave her Dad there, he seemed not to know who they were, only new people to talk to (Dad had always been the social butterfly) and stories to share – he went off with his new friends without a backwards glance at all. Mum had been crushed, but she agreed to leave him for a bit and come back later to see how he was getting on….Corri drove her back around supper time, and other than a simple ‘Hallo, how are you?’, Dad was off with his new-found friends, though Mum could be heard muttering “…you’d think he had spent his entire life with them the way he is carrying on…”
Corri drove her Mum over to the Home several times over the next few days, and yes, even managed to persuade Mum to pack up some things so that they could leave on a vacation, “yes, Mum it’s all arranged, the cabin is ours for the whole month”…..and “it will do you good to have some time to relax”…..and finally, it was done, they were on the road with a brief stop at the Home to see Dad , and then off they went to the lakeside cabin.
And now, here she sat pensively studying the lake, the tensions of the past slowly ebbing away, much like the current was doing on the lake below. She had needed this respite, as did her Mum. This vacation was needed to build up their mental reserves and strength so that when they returned home, they could finish picking up the pieces of their shattered lives. Corri’s siblings were to check in on Dad every few days, and so far from what they had said in phone calls, nothing had changed. He still did not know who they were, nor did he seem to miss Mum, at least none of the nursing staff had said so anyway…..Mum had a difficult road ahead of her, for too long she had needed to be needed, and now would have to find a different way to use her time. Not that there weren’t plenty of opportunities available to her, she had simply chosen to not look at any of them previously because of Dad….
So, ‘one step at a time’ as Dad had always said…..Corri sighed, time would tell where they would go from here…..
Thursday, June 17, 2010
..how wild is this life?
….well, got a bit of a chuckle the other morning. Was on my way down the road, on my way to go meet my sister, when I caught a flash of pink. Yes, P-I-N-K…..quite a few (?maybe 20 or so) of those familiar lawn ornaments…the ubiquitous Pink Flamingo, lined up beside the driveway and scattered across the front lawn (they were no longer there later that afternoon when I returned homeward) – had to be someone’s idea of a joke …amusing way to start the day, nonetheless.
Less than a half-mile from that, I pass a corn field that had recently been planted. In a low spot was several dozen Canada geese, most with their heads tucked under their wings…guess they thought that was a good place as any to bed down for the night as the previous evening had been heavy torrential rain and gusty winds. Don’t usually get to see so many at once this early in the year, so was rather nice.
So ok, I am now thinking it is going to be a good day as I continue on my merry way….going through a small town the little car in front of my truck suddenly puts the brakes on and swerves narrowly missing the youngish moose that ran out of the woods on our right, across the road, and into some woods behind the local Town office on the left side…..yeah, I hit the brakes too, and no-body (and nothing) got hurt ……phew!
This week’s wildlife sightings involved the neighbors who called to let us know there had been a fox seen in the previous few days acting oddly, running down the road and up their driveway to the deck (and this is with people and dog right there), and someone also said they had seen it running down another road stopping every few yards to shake its head before continuing on….yup, sounds like rabies, and local Animal Control and Sheriff’s Department both had said we were free to shoot it if it came at us. Well, the other afternoon the sheriff himself is the one who took it out, and where our house sits we pretty much had a ringside seat. The rifle blast sent one of my dogs racing to my basement office to hide under the desk – picture this if you will: big ~70-lb Lab/Pointer shaking like a wind-blown leaf, teeth chattering like he was cold, and big white bug-eyes trying to come out of his head, and all the while he is trying to hide …..Can someone please explain how a dog who growls so menacingly at anything that crosses our lawn (in such a way so as to strike terror in us if we didn’t know him to be such a marsh-mellow) with the hackles raised to stiff peaks, could be such a wuss at the sound of a gunshot?..Sheesh….good thing Hunting Season does not start for another 4-5 months….
Less than a half-mile from that, I pass a corn field that had recently been planted. In a low spot was several dozen Canada geese, most with their heads tucked under their wings…guess they thought that was a good place as any to bed down for the night as the previous evening had been heavy torrential rain and gusty winds. Don’t usually get to see so many at once this early in the year, so was rather nice.
So ok, I am now thinking it is going to be a good day as I continue on my merry way….going through a small town the little car in front of my truck suddenly puts the brakes on and swerves narrowly missing the youngish moose that ran out of the woods on our right, across the road, and into some woods behind the local Town office on the left side…..yeah, I hit the brakes too, and no-body (and nothing) got hurt ……phew!
This week’s wildlife sightings involved the neighbors who called to let us know there had been a fox seen in the previous few days acting oddly, running down the road and up their driveway to the deck (and this is with people and dog right there), and someone also said they had seen it running down another road stopping every few yards to shake its head before continuing on….yup, sounds like rabies, and local Animal Control and Sheriff’s Department both had said we were free to shoot it if it came at us. Well, the other afternoon the sheriff himself is the one who took it out, and where our house sits we pretty much had a ringside seat. The rifle blast sent one of my dogs racing to my basement office to hide under the desk – picture this if you will: big ~70-lb Lab/Pointer shaking like a wind-blown leaf, teeth chattering like he was cold, and big white bug-eyes trying to come out of his head, and all the while he is trying to hide …..Can someone please explain how a dog who growls so menacingly at anything that crosses our lawn (in such a way so as to strike terror in us if we didn’t know him to be such a marsh-mellow) with the hackles raised to stiff peaks, could be such a wuss at the sound of a gunshot?..Sheesh….good thing Hunting Season does not start for another 4-5 months….
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
nightmares
{let me preface this by stating: This is NOT a true occurrence – this is where the prompt led me, though there have been news stories where this could have been the scenario}
“Sweat beaded on her forehead and she took a shuddering breath. She was so close to being done forever.” How long had she been quivering like this she wondered, as the painful spasms rocked her body once more. The sweat and other substances flowed and dripped off her body. She couldn’t understand why something like this was happening to her…
She thought back to her childhood when she first arrived at the house. She heard everything that was said to her, but having been born mute could never ‘speak for herself,’ so when the nice lady at the home where she lived with the other children told her she was going to a good home, she thought things would change, and that maybe someone could teach her to make the sounds the others made….instead, she remained trapped in a world where only guttural moans and grunts came from her throat.
The new place seemed nice, and the people that lived there: an elderly woman who could barely see or hear, needing an extra set of hands to care for her…..so if nothing else, the girl felt useful. The man that lived there as well, that was a different thing…..he was younger than the old woman, with beady little eyes that watched e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she did, and sometimes appeared as though he was ill, breathing hard and licking his lips. The man made her nervous, and he did not seem to talk much to anyone, though as she got a little older she quickly learned what a certain look in the eyes meant and made herself scarce so that he would not touch her. He let her get away with avoiding him sometimes, though the smile never reached his eyes when he would only say “I’ll see you later’…..She dreaded those times, because she knew he would come to her bed that night and she wouldn’t be able to breathe when the big sweaty body lay over her…she learned quickly not to fight what the man did because he would make her hurt even more…She did try to avoid it by going to the old woman’s room, hoping for protection, but in the dark of night the old woman neither saw nor heard what happened on the floor beside her bed, and the man would still take what he wanted, then walk her back to her own room and take her once more…
She shuddered at that memory….once a night was bad enough, but having to endure the pawing hands that touched her everywhere inside and out AGAIN made her want to retch, violently in order to empty herself of his touch, much like her body seemed to want to do now….she could smell the metallic sweet odor of blood, knew it to be her own… Pain racked her body once more….the waves of clenching pain kept rolling through her…she took another shuddering breath…..
She had decided she could no longer live in that house…the elderly woman had expired, quite peacefully, some 2 weeks back…now there was nothing to stop the man from touching, or pinching, or fondling, or worse, w-h-e-n-e-v-e-r he wanted. Since she could not speak and had never learned to write, there was no way she could have made anyone else aware of her situation, but she knew she had to leave and get as far away from here as possible…..
The man was gone when she woke that morning, the truck as well…..good, his weekly trip to town, so she had a few hours before he returned….no time to waste. She moved quickly, too quickly it seemed as her body tightened into spasm bringing her to her knees…taking a deep breath she slowly stood up, and picked up the items she had previously stashed and hidden, tied them together in a small bundle, looked around once more, turned to walk out, then stopped. She turned once more, this time moving resolutely toward the stove where she helped herself to several red embers in an old pottery jug. She turned to leave once more and once more her body betrayed her as more shudders racked her slight frame, causing her to drop the jug of embers which rolled away across the floor in every direction….no time to obtain more, she had to get out of there, so she moved towards and through the door, closing it softly behind her….
She moved to the tree line as quickly as her body would permit, as the spasms continued with every movement…she made sure to walk in the stream so that no one could follow her….the icy water numbed her feet causing her slip on the rocks, so it was hard to tell if the pain was because her belly hit a rock, or if it still only came from within her….she tried to hurry out of the water, slipped once more, reached to grab a branch only to find it was a bramble that pulled loose resulting in her landing backwards in the icy stream once more. She stumbled out of the water and headed into the woods where she soon found herself hopelessly disoriented…she did not notice the deeper shadows that yawned open before her, and tumbled deep within the old well…the darkness mingled with the unrelenting pain…the blood poured out of her from several mortal gashes, all the while her body tried to expel itself of something else…..her eyes fluttered closed….her breathing sounding more and more ragged and shallow, sweat pouring from her as her body twisted and contorted in pain….
“Sweat beaded on her forehead and she took a shuddering breath. She was so close to being done forever.” How long had she been quivering like this she wondered, as the painful spasms rocked her body once more. The sweat and other substances flowed and dripped off her body. She couldn’t understand why something like this was happening to her…
She thought back to her childhood when she first arrived at the house. She heard everything that was said to her, but having been born mute could never ‘speak for herself,’ so when the nice lady at the home where she lived with the other children told her she was going to a good home, she thought things would change, and that maybe someone could teach her to make the sounds the others made….instead, she remained trapped in a world where only guttural moans and grunts came from her throat.
The new place seemed nice, and the people that lived there: an elderly woman who could barely see or hear, needing an extra set of hands to care for her…..so if nothing else, the girl felt useful. The man that lived there as well, that was a different thing…..he was younger than the old woman, with beady little eyes that watched e-v-e-r-y-t-h-i-n-g she did, and sometimes appeared as though he was ill, breathing hard and licking his lips. The man made her nervous, and he did not seem to talk much to anyone, though as she got a little older she quickly learned what a certain look in the eyes meant and made herself scarce so that he would not touch her. He let her get away with avoiding him sometimes, though the smile never reached his eyes when he would only say “I’ll see you later’…..She dreaded those times, because she knew he would come to her bed that night and she wouldn’t be able to breathe when the big sweaty body lay over her…she learned quickly not to fight what the man did because he would make her hurt even more…She did try to avoid it by going to the old woman’s room, hoping for protection, but in the dark of night the old woman neither saw nor heard what happened on the floor beside her bed, and the man would still take what he wanted, then walk her back to her own room and take her once more…
She shuddered at that memory….once a night was bad enough, but having to endure the pawing hands that touched her everywhere inside and out AGAIN made her want to retch, violently in order to empty herself of his touch, much like her body seemed to want to do now….she could smell the metallic sweet odor of blood, knew it to be her own… Pain racked her body once more….the waves of clenching pain kept rolling through her…she took another shuddering breath…..
She had decided she could no longer live in that house…the elderly woman had expired, quite peacefully, some 2 weeks back…now there was nothing to stop the man from touching, or pinching, or fondling, or worse, w-h-e-n-e-v-e-r he wanted. Since she could not speak and had never learned to write, there was no way she could have made anyone else aware of her situation, but she knew she had to leave and get as far away from here as possible…..
The man was gone when she woke that morning, the truck as well…..good, his weekly trip to town, so she had a few hours before he returned….no time to waste. She moved quickly, too quickly it seemed as her body tightened into spasm bringing her to her knees…taking a deep breath she slowly stood up, and picked up the items she had previously stashed and hidden, tied them together in a small bundle, looked around once more, turned to walk out, then stopped. She turned once more, this time moving resolutely toward the stove where she helped herself to several red embers in an old pottery jug. She turned to leave once more and once more her body betrayed her as more shudders racked her slight frame, causing her to drop the jug of embers which rolled away across the floor in every direction….no time to obtain more, she had to get out of there, so she moved towards and through the door, closing it softly behind her….
She moved to the tree line as quickly as her body would permit, as the spasms continued with every movement…she made sure to walk in the stream so that no one could follow her….the icy water numbed her feet causing her slip on the rocks, so it was hard to tell if the pain was because her belly hit a rock, or if it still only came from within her….she tried to hurry out of the water, slipped once more, reached to grab a branch only to find it was a bramble that pulled loose resulting in her landing backwards in the icy stream once more. She stumbled out of the water and headed into the woods where she soon found herself hopelessly disoriented…she did not notice the deeper shadows that yawned open before her, and tumbled deep within the old well…the darkness mingled with the unrelenting pain…the blood poured out of her from several mortal gashes, all the while her body tried to expel itself of something else…..her eyes fluttered closed….her breathing sounding more and more ragged and shallow, sweat pouring from her as her body twisted and contorted in pain….
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
crying in the dust
“…I'm so tired of being here . . . I wish that you would just leave
Your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone…”
Your words still resonate in my heart, though it has been quite some time since you spoke to me. Why did I survive and you did not? The plan had always been for us to be together, to live and love and grow old together…whose idea was it to shorten your lifeline in such a way that we couldn’t share the end together?
My memories take me back to days sitting on the back porch swing, holding hands, talking of the future….where we would live, what kind of house would we build ,how many kids would we have…..you know, all the dreams young couples in love are supposed to have…I could so clearly see us in our golden years still sharing the back porch swing, holding hands and reflecting on all we had accomplished with our lives…..
When I open my eyes there is only dust and loneliness filling the empty years….the house became someone else’s home when I could no longer bear to live there alone…the memories those walls hold are theirs now, not mine and never yours….
“. . . . These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase . . .
I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts . . . me . . . “
Oh how I wish I could no longer hear your voice or see your face in my mind….I cannot move on even now, and it has been so long. I crave a peace that I cannot have…..immortality is only as good as the companions you have, and I grow ever more weary of a life without you…..
“. . . But you still have all of me . . .”
Your presence still lingers here and it won't leave me alone…”
Your words still resonate in my heart, though it has been quite some time since you spoke to me. Why did I survive and you did not? The plan had always been for us to be together, to live and love and grow old together…whose idea was it to shorten your lifeline in such a way that we couldn’t share the end together?
My memories take me back to days sitting on the back porch swing, holding hands, talking of the future….where we would live, what kind of house would we build ,how many kids would we have…..you know, all the dreams young couples in love are supposed to have…I could so clearly see us in our golden years still sharing the back porch swing, holding hands and reflecting on all we had accomplished with our lives…..
When I open my eyes there is only dust and loneliness filling the empty years….the house became someone else’s home when I could no longer bear to live there alone…the memories those walls hold are theirs now, not mine and never yours….
“. . . . These wounds won't seem to heal, this pain is just too real
There's just too much that time cannot erase . . .
I'm bound by the life you left behind
Your face it haunts . . . me . . . “
Oh how I wish I could no longer hear your voice or see your face in my mind….I cannot move on even now, and it has been so long. I crave a peace that I cannot have…..immortality is only as good as the companions you have, and I grow ever more weary of a life without you…..
“. . . But you still have all of me . . .”
Thursday, May 13, 2010
The List -- part A
First, let me preface this by stating that it does not fall under any of the weekly writing prompts I have been attempting to follow...this is more of an aside, which will be followed with a Part-B at some point in the near future.
It seems that lately everywhere I go, whether it be a book store or somebody’s blog, I am finding lists. Lists of the author’s degrees or other books published, other blogs that are being followed, how-many-and-where-from readers of said blog. There are even lists of the Top 100 ___ -- people to meet, places to go, things to do, books to read, etc…I guess in a way putting The List down in print somewhere makes you feel you have to follow it, you are somehow held accountable for all that it contains and made to feel a failure if things do not go as planned and the list is completed by the time you are at death’s door…. Do I want to do that to myself ? …well, not so much in terms of the items on the bucket list HAVE to BE DONE/BE SEEN/BE READ/BE MET/etc…The List for me would include items from all and every aspect, but I see it more of a Wish List of things I would like to see or do, or people I would like to sit and talk with, or places I would like to explore whether from a historical/educational/enjoyment aspect…the list would be a combination of all of the above because oftentimes the items cross over between categories making them difficult to label as one or the other.
With that being said, I could also not qualify each item listed with a number of order, because as with all “interests” and “wish list” items, they change in priority as one moves through life. So, does this make the list a de-cluttering of my life by making me focus on just certain things, or is it in fact cluttering it up even further by limiting my life experiences to just what is on the list?
We shall have to see….stay tuned for Part B….
It seems that lately everywhere I go, whether it be a book store or somebody’s blog, I am finding lists. Lists of the author’s degrees or other books published, other blogs that are being followed, how-many-and-where-from readers of said blog. There are even lists of the Top 100 ___ -- people to meet, places to go, things to do, books to read, etc…I guess in a way putting The List down in print somewhere makes you feel you have to follow it, you are somehow held accountable for all that it contains and made to feel a failure if things do not go as planned and the list is completed by the time you are at death’s door…. Do I want to do that to myself ? …well, not so much in terms of the items on the bucket list HAVE to BE DONE/BE SEEN/BE READ/BE MET/etc…The List for me would include items from all and every aspect, but I see it more of a Wish List of things I would like to see or do, or people I would like to sit and talk with, or places I would like to explore whether from a historical/educational/enjoyment aspect…the list would be a combination of all of the above because oftentimes the items cross over between categories making them difficult to label as one or the other.
With that being said, I could also not qualify each item listed with a number of order, because as with all “interests” and “wish list” items, they change in priority as one moves through life. So, does this make the list a de-cluttering of my life by making me focus on just certain things, or is it in fact cluttering it up even further by limiting my life experiences to just what is on the list?
We shall have to see….stay tuned for Part B….
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Morning Dance for May
There was a dance at the bird feeder this morn...as I stood at the back door with coffee in hand, I watched the ever-changing procession of birds coming in for a fast bite before heading back to their nests. Looking over the lawn, there is movement that is not wind-caused but little brown sparrows of several varieties. Quite fun to watch their little tails go straight up as the head bobs to the ground to pick up morsels previously dropped by others. The feeder hanging in the tree above them is a regular way-station too.....a sparrow there is soon joined by a chickadee (there is a pair that has returned to make their nest in the swing-pipe across the yard)...The blue-green headed grackles roll in and the small birds scatter, however, the noisemakers of this local bird community don't get to enjoy much of it before they are run off by another of the noisemakers, the bluejay. He comes in and struts around like he owns the place (he is one of about a dozen we see here), jumping onto the feeder where his weight sets it to rocking and in the process knocking seeds to the ground where he then goes to reap his reward. Then, a flash of red coming in from the side...the cardinal is back this morning too, though I am not sure if this is a young un-attached male or the female (there were 3 cardinals vying for rights in this yard last year)...a few minutes of feeding and then off it goes as well.
Always a different crowd in the yard, and you never know if it will be the songbirds, the showbirds, or the disruptive bully-birds....We have had sparrows, woodpeckers, nuthatches, grosbeaks, and the occasional hummingbird….there have been turkeys in the lower yard, and even a Canada goose one summer (there is a pair that nests quite close to here every year). There is also a blue heron I have seen – this will be the third year this un-attached bird is here. The mourning doves and robins, and of course the crows, are here all summer long. Sometimes in the early evening you hear the solitary call of an owl as well....that, and the lonely-sounding calls of the loons who live on the pond....have also seen a few small hawks (and with the multitude of small wildlife here, the pickings are good for them). There is also a bonded pair of eagles nesting on the pond a short distance away, so we have gotten to enjoy seeing them and their two youngling floating on the air currents, recognizable from a distance because of the white heads....
Yes, definitely a different world out there, but a wonderful one to be a part of, even if it is only the dance around the May-pole known as the feeding station …
Always a different crowd in the yard, and you never know if it will be the songbirds, the showbirds, or the disruptive bully-birds....We have had sparrows, woodpeckers, nuthatches, grosbeaks, and the occasional hummingbird….there have been turkeys in the lower yard, and even a Canada goose one summer (there is a pair that nests quite close to here every year). There is also a blue heron I have seen – this will be the third year this un-attached bird is here. The mourning doves and robins, and of course the crows, are here all summer long. Sometimes in the early evening you hear the solitary call of an owl as well....that, and the lonely-sounding calls of the loons who live on the pond....have also seen a few small hawks (and with the multitude of small wildlife here, the pickings are good for them). There is also a bonded pair of eagles nesting on the pond a short distance away, so we have gotten to enjoy seeing them and their two youngling floating on the air currents, recognizable from a distance because of the white heads....
Yes, definitely a different world out there, but a wonderful one to be a part of, even if it is only the dance around the May-pole known as the feeding station …
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Letters from the past
I found a letter today…well, ok, not today…the pile of mail had been sitting where I dumped it on the side table almost a week ago. In any case, this envelope looked out of place with its grayish-yellow paper and what looked to be smudged pencil lettering on it. But it was addressed to me, Anita Spenser, and the return address almost completely ineligible due to the water stains, though the name of Bob Su-- and the US—below it were clear enough to see. Well, this was a puzzle to be sure….Da’s name was not Bob or Robert either, nor was it his father’s name, so…who was Bob ??
It seems I must give you a little history for this to make sense. I moved back to my childhood home after my divorce and re-took my maiden name of Spenser. Ma was in and out of hospitals with an illness that Da would never name (I suspect it may have been a type of cancer), so I mostly helped Da around the house and farm. When Ma passed on, it soon became evident that Da was floundering without her companionship, and his mental capacities faded more and more each day. When he finally passed as well, with a smile on his face no less, saying simply “I’m coming Midge, just wait up for me”, I knew he was going to a happier place. So, my parents house was now mine. I remember as a child coming here and playing in the fields near the barn…this was Gran’s house. I was always her favorite, you see, and she let me get away with many an escapade that none of my friends could lay a claim to…One year for my birthday, she gave me a small key, telling me it was something very precious to her, and that someday I would need that key so I should hold it very dear to me as well. That seemed out of character for Gran to say something like that, but as a child I didn’t think much further than the words themselves and the fact that she gave me something she so obviously prized….in hindsight it did seem that there were days when Gran seemed almost sad and introspective about something she was thinking on or remembering, but the child saw only the bright sunny day and the breeze making the hay wave across the fields and just had to go out and play…..
Anyway, the faded letter brought all the childhood memories back….what would I find inside the envelope, I wondered…something mundane or exciting? Was this a long-lost relative who went to war, or something more simplistic like Grampy couldn’t write and so a friend of his wrote for him? I steeled myself for what I would find, and slowly slid the envelope open.
A single sheet of folded paper lay within, with only a few lines looking like they had been written in a hurry. “Dearest Ani” it began, “How do I tell you how excited and pleased I am with your news? To know that our love has created something amazing…my joy knows no bounds! I cant’t wait to get home and put my ring on your hand…”
What ? ! Gran was pregnant? And not married! Wow!...that was never anything Da said a word about, nor Gran ever mention either.
So, what to do? I sat there, lost in thought for some time, wondering about this babe …was it possible that Gran had another child before Da, one who’s existence or any information about, may be stashed somewhere in this house? After all, she grew up in this house, there had to be some of her things that were never gotten rid of, couldn’t there? …Perhaps in the basement? No, those were Da’s boxes that I had moved to the cellar after he passed, and I did not remember seeing anything about Gran in them…..
Perhaps the attic then?...I hadn’t gotten very far in exploring that area yet, and memories of Gran telling me that was NOT a playground and I needed to stay out of it….could she have been hiding something there, something she did not want anyone to see? Did I want to resurrect old ghosts and secrets?
With this in mind, and no small amount of trepidation, I headed for the attic pull-stairs. After bodily shoving the door flap upward (and sending it flying into a pocket of dust that almost had me falling off my perch when I started sneezing and coughing), I shined the flashlight around and above the opening. Jackpot! There was a cord hanging there that when pulled, dimly illuminated various shrouded forms and piles of boxes, an old rocking horse with the broken leg that I remembered playing with as a child, Ma’s polished mirror that used to grace her room until she lost all her hair the last time she was so sick, and faintly at the far end some light was coming in from an attic window….Well, that single light bulb and this flashlight were not going to be enough.
Back down I headed to find an additional light source. Once I had this, I returned to the attic once more to begin my exploration. It was going to be a long process, as each ‘form’ had to be uncovered to be examined. What wonderful treasures and surprises there were …an old coat tree intricately carved with delicate vines and what I believed to be a tail of something that began at the floor and wound their way up to the top where an impressive dragon head with mirrored eyes appeared. An old steamer trunk with Da’s initials carved into it, which when opened revealed packets of letters carefully tied together, which upon inspection revealed themselves to be love letters between he and Ma when they were courting – I’ll have to come back to those at a later date. Several pieces of furniture: straight backed chairs from Gran’s parlor, a trundle bed I remembered using as a child, and oddly enough, a church pew. Boxes with assorted dishes and glassware, knick knacks that hadn’t seen the light of day in my lifetime, newspapers about the Depression and the War….. Obviously some of it would need to be disposed of, such as the very much moth-eaten and mouse-homed stuffed chair and blankets, but much that was not. Slowly I worked my way along one wall to the window. It was at this point that I realized that there were several boxes shoved far back under the eaves almost hiding behind other things – perhaps Gran hadn’t wanted those to be found and so had tucked them away behind everything else.
I went after the bottommost and furthest back…..stood to reason if Gran didn’t want anyone finding it by accident, it would be covered up/buried under something. The old box appeared to be what may have once been a hat box, octagonal in shape, with a faded cabbage rose print now gone to tan. It opened easily enough, with a slightly cracked paper sound. Oh my, sitting on the very top were hair ribbons and a military dog-tag, along with a picture of a young smiling couple who appeared to be very much in love. The girl’s face was my own when I looked in the mirror so obviously had to be Gran; the boy’s was unknown, certainly looked nothing at all like Da….I examined the tags….Sutt, Robert I is what it said. So there it was, the name of Gran’s beau. Below that, an old military formal-type envelope addressed to Gran, one that appeared to have gotten wet and/or crinkled up at some point in its life…I started to read the single-page form letter it contained…”..regret to inform you of the death of Sgt. Sutt…..”
So there it was…the reason this all hidden away, he no longer walked among the living and she wanted no reminders.…I looked further into her box and found her diary – tightly packed pages with folded papers pressed within its pages, but it was locked. Below that, an envelope from what appeared to be a Home for unwed mothers with nothing inside it….
I had found her secret, but short of destroying the diary, I would never know what it contained……I realized now that the key she had given me all those years ago HAD been to her heart, the heart she left at the home when they buried her Sergeant….the key that I had dropped down the well shaft years before… .
{the names and events noted in the above are in no way an actual re-telling of anyone’s history, merely coincidence ….}
It seems I must give you a little history for this to make sense. I moved back to my childhood home after my divorce and re-took my maiden name of Spenser. Ma was in and out of hospitals with an illness that Da would never name (I suspect it may have been a type of cancer), so I mostly helped Da around the house and farm. When Ma passed on, it soon became evident that Da was floundering without her companionship, and his mental capacities faded more and more each day. When he finally passed as well, with a smile on his face no less, saying simply “I’m coming Midge, just wait up for me”, I knew he was going to a happier place. So, my parents house was now mine. I remember as a child coming here and playing in the fields near the barn…this was Gran’s house. I was always her favorite, you see, and she let me get away with many an escapade that none of my friends could lay a claim to…One year for my birthday, she gave me a small key, telling me it was something very precious to her, and that someday I would need that key so I should hold it very dear to me as well. That seemed out of character for Gran to say something like that, but as a child I didn’t think much further than the words themselves and the fact that she gave me something she so obviously prized….in hindsight it did seem that there were days when Gran seemed almost sad and introspective about something she was thinking on or remembering, but the child saw only the bright sunny day and the breeze making the hay wave across the fields and just had to go out and play…..
Anyway, the faded letter brought all the childhood memories back….what would I find inside the envelope, I wondered…something mundane or exciting? Was this a long-lost relative who went to war, or something more simplistic like Grampy couldn’t write and so a friend of his wrote for him? I steeled myself for what I would find, and slowly slid the envelope open.
A single sheet of folded paper lay within, with only a few lines looking like they had been written in a hurry. “Dearest Ani” it began, “How do I tell you how excited and pleased I am with your news? To know that our love has created something amazing…my joy knows no bounds! I cant’t wait to get home and put my ring on your hand…”
What ? ! Gran was pregnant? And not married! Wow!...that was never anything Da said a word about, nor Gran ever mention either.
So, what to do? I sat there, lost in thought for some time, wondering about this babe …was it possible that Gran had another child before Da, one who’s existence or any information about, may be stashed somewhere in this house? After all, she grew up in this house, there had to be some of her things that were never gotten rid of, couldn’t there? …Perhaps in the basement? No, those were Da’s boxes that I had moved to the cellar after he passed, and I did not remember seeing anything about Gran in them…..
Perhaps the attic then?...I hadn’t gotten very far in exploring that area yet, and memories of Gran telling me that was NOT a playground and I needed to stay out of it….could she have been hiding something there, something she did not want anyone to see? Did I want to resurrect old ghosts and secrets?
With this in mind, and no small amount of trepidation, I headed for the attic pull-stairs. After bodily shoving the door flap upward (and sending it flying into a pocket of dust that almost had me falling off my perch when I started sneezing and coughing), I shined the flashlight around and above the opening. Jackpot! There was a cord hanging there that when pulled, dimly illuminated various shrouded forms and piles of boxes, an old rocking horse with the broken leg that I remembered playing with as a child, Ma’s polished mirror that used to grace her room until she lost all her hair the last time she was so sick, and faintly at the far end some light was coming in from an attic window….Well, that single light bulb and this flashlight were not going to be enough.
Back down I headed to find an additional light source. Once I had this, I returned to the attic once more to begin my exploration. It was going to be a long process, as each ‘form’ had to be uncovered to be examined. What wonderful treasures and surprises there were …an old coat tree intricately carved with delicate vines and what I believed to be a tail of something that began at the floor and wound their way up to the top where an impressive dragon head with mirrored eyes appeared. An old steamer trunk with Da’s initials carved into it, which when opened revealed packets of letters carefully tied together, which upon inspection revealed themselves to be love letters between he and Ma when they were courting – I’ll have to come back to those at a later date. Several pieces of furniture: straight backed chairs from Gran’s parlor, a trundle bed I remembered using as a child, and oddly enough, a church pew. Boxes with assorted dishes and glassware, knick knacks that hadn’t seen the light of day in my lifetime, newspapers about the Depression and the War….. Obviously some of it would need to be disposed of, such as the very much moth-eaten and mouse-homed stuffed chair and blankets, but much that was not. Slowly I worked my way along one wall to the window. It was at this point that I realized that there were several boxes shoved far back under the eaves almost hiding behind other things – perhaps Gran hadn’t wanted those to be found and so had tucked them away behind everything else.
I went after the bottommost and furthest back…..stood to reason if Gran didn’t want anyone finding it by accident, it would be covered up/buried under something. The old box appeared to be what may have once been a hat box, octagonal in shape, with a faded cabbage rose print now gone to tan. It opened easily enough, with a slightly cracked paper sound. Oh my, sitting on the very top were hair ribbons and a military dog-tag, along with a picture of a young smiling couple who appeared to be very much in love. The girl’s face was my own when I looked in the mirror so obviously had to be Gran; the boy’s was unknown, certainly looked nothing at all like Da….I examined the tags….Sutt, Robert I is what it said. So there it was, the name of Gran’s beau. Below that, an old military formal-type envelope addressed to Gran, one that appeared to have gotten wet and/or crinkled up at some point in its life…I started to read the single-page form letter it contained…”..regret to inform you of the death of Sgt. Sutt…..”
So there it was…the reason this all hidden away, he no longer walked among the living and she wanted no reminders.…I looked further into her box and found her diary – tightly packed pages with folded papers pressed within its pages, but it was locked. Below that, an envelope from what appeared to be a Home for unwed mothers with nothing inside it….
I had found her secret, but short of destroying the diary, I would never know what it contained……I realized now that the key she had given me all those years ago HAD been to her heart, the heart she left at the home when they buried her Sergeant….the key that I had dropped down the well shaft years before… .
{the names and events noted in the above are in no way an actual re-telling of anyone’s history, merely coincidence ….}
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
..Oh to be .....
Have you ever heard the expression “..oh to be a fly on the wall..” and wondered, what if you actually were? What kinds of things would you see, or hear, or do if you actually were? Would your perception of life as you know it change because you were no longer bigger than everything around you, but instead just a tiny speck? Would you be scared of “giants” or exhilarated at the freedom of getting into tiny crevices that opened into whole new worlds? Would you be a solitary creature, or part of a group? Would you live a long satisfying life, or would you live-and-die in the space of a day?
Come with me, if you dare, and see…..
….m-u-s-t…. come …out… of.. this thing
..so dry and hot in here….and I am hungry..oh so hungry
….gotta get out, gotta go eat….oh, smell something, gotta go see, need to eat, gotta go to it, gotta go eat…zztt..there, I’m out of here
…gotta go, need to eat
…oooh, so many colors out here and they are all around me., gotta go, gotta eat, pretty white slug…..zztt…gotta eat…sspptt – slurp- yumm
gotta go, gotta see…zztt…smells like….zztt ymm
….sounds exploding, gentle vibrations of air as beasts move below me and near me….smell the heat and hot bodies, feel the moist air as the beast breathes…so hot, smells good, gotta eat….zztt…whistles in the distance with sharp yips, voices calling, tramp of feet, heat rising to me…gotta go..gotta eat…gotta see …..zzztt…brown mountain smells yumm, gotta eat…zztt
….oooh…another like me…mmm…gotta see, gotta go there…zzzt over and ..
..hey! …
s
w
i
s
h…
s-p-P-L-A-A-T !
“Mommie…look! I squashed a bug! “
Come with me, if you dare, and see…..
….m-u-s-t…. come …out… of.. this thing
..so dry and hot in here….and I am hungry..oh so hungry
….gotta get out, gotta go eat….oh, smell something, gotta go see, need to eat, gotta go to it, gotta go eat…zztt..there, I’m out of here
…gotta go, need to eat
…oooh, so many colors out here and they are all around me., gotta go, gotta eat, pretty white slug…..zztt…gotta eat…sspptt – slurp- yumm
gotta go, gotta see…zztt…smells like….zztt ymm
….sounds exploding, gentle vibrations of air as beasts move below me and near me….smell the heat and hot bodies, feel the moist air as the beast breathes…so hot, smells good, gotta eat….zztt…whistles in the distance with sharp yips, voices calling, tramp of feet, heat rising to me…gotta go..gotta eat…gotta see …..zzztt…brown mountain smells yumm, gotta eat…zztt
….oooh…another like me…mmm…gotta see, gotta go there…zzzt over and ..
..hey! …
s
w
i
s
h…
s-p-P-L-A-A-T !
“Mommie…look! I squashed a bug! “
Monday, April 5, 2010
this 'n that, or, is it Spring yet ?
..well, busy couple of weeks, still writing (in my head), just never seem to be able to "immortalize" it ....such is life.
Actually made some bread this past week...how utterly satisfying to hear the soft pop of gas bubbles popping as you knead the dough, feeling the slight elastic resistance as you turn, push and pull it towards you....and how absolutely delightful to smell the wonderful aroma of fresh baked bread(s), to hear the hollow thwump on the crust telling you it is done...the fragrant air that fills the house....yumm
The past few days have been rather nice...sunny skies, warmish temps, grass turning green, yellow-gold-green buds on tree branches, "peepers" calling in the pond across the way, and birdsong filling the air...yes, an early spring for us....as much as I love the chilly temps and crunch of snow underfoot, I can do without the muddy mess that needs to be put up with before the world around me truly "goes green" ......
Actually made some bread this past week...how utterly satisfying to hear the soft pop of gas bubbles popping as you knead the dough, feeling the slight elastic resistance as you turn, push and pull it towards you....and how absolutely delightful to smell the wonderful aroma of fresh baked bread(s), to hear the hollow thwump on the crust telling you it is done...the fragrant air that fills the house....yumm
The past few days have been rather nice...sunny skies, warmish temps, grass turning green, yellow-gold-green buds on tree branches, "peepers" calling in the pond across the way, and birdsong filling the air...yes, an early spring for us....as much as I love the chilly temps and crunch of snow underfoot, I can do without the muddy mess that needs to be put up with before the world around me truly "goes green" ......
Friday, March 12, 2010
the Shaman's Journey
The boy trod softly along the lonely path, not with any real sense of where he was going but only that he had been told he needed to walk until it was time to walk no more. The Shaman had been very explicit in this – his vision quest could not begin until he was where he was supposed to be, and so therefore he must walk until he heard his Spirit Guide calling to him to stop….and so, he walked...
His journey had begun many moons before when he first became aware of his surroundings…he understood the path of life that surrounded him and how it related to the People. He had few friends as a child, no one wanted to be near the boy with eyes that saw forever….he believed he frightened his parents as well for his father would never look him straight in the eye….Then the day came when the Shaman came to his home and told him to come with him and take only what he needed – he picked up his bedding, made sure he had his knife and called his horse to him – he left the tent of his father without a backward glance…the journey to apprentice to the shaman had taken another step. He spent the next several years serving the Shaman, observing all he did and how, whether it was speaking to the Chief or the child looking so forlorn when his warrior father left him behind. He attended to their daily needs, and assisted those who had none to help them. He helped the Shaman prepare for rituals he still had no understanding of, but somehow always managed to set the stage for without being told how…..
The day came then when the old man roused him well before the dawn sun had cleared the far horizon….”You must go,” he was told….”I can give you nothing more until you return.” And so the boy-now-almost-a-man, left the Shaman’s tent and began his journey anew….
And so he walked, placing his feet softly upon the ground so that unless you physically saw him walk by you would find no trace of his passage upon that ground. How swiftly the miles passed beneath his feet, yet still he walked…the horizon still lay far before him, and surely what he sought had to be found there….No unusual sounds pierced his reverie as he trod ever onward, nothing that called his name or made him pause…he stopped only to rest or drink from a passing stream. … he lost track of how many suns and halos of stars lay between him and from whence he had come, he only knew his journey was not done …..
On a day filled with blue skies and still air, he beheld a tree standing beside the path…a tree with bare branches that moved ever so slightly in the still air. He stopped to look up at the branches…they appeared as a net against the sky and he could almost feel them wrapping themselves around him -- but this could not be, the branches were above his head and he could not touch them…was this then how his Spirit Guide was finally reaching out to him? It seemed to the boy that all else around him faded from his consciousness so he knew that he had found the place he sought, and so he sat himself near the base of the tree – not touching or leaning into it, but in front of it … He sat for he knew not how long before the images spilled into him as the Tree Spirit breathed the story to the man…….
His journey had begun many moons before when he first became aware of his surroundings…he understood the path of life that surrounded him and how it related to the People. He had few friends as a child, no one wanted to be near the boy with eyes that saw forever….he believed he frightened his parents as well for his father would never look him straight in the eye….Then the day came when the Shaman came to his home and told him to come with him and take only what he needed – he picked up his bedding, made sure he had his knife and called his horse to him – he left the tent of his father without a backward glance…the journey to apprentice to the shaman had taken another step. He spent the next several years serving the Shaman, observing all he did and how, whether it was speaking to the Chief or the child looking so forlorn when his warrior father left him behind. He attended to their daily needs, and assisted those who had none to help them. He helped the Shaman prepare for rituals he still had no understanding of, but somehow always managed to set the stage for without being told how…..
The day came then when the old man roused him well before the dawn sun had cleared the far horizon….”You must go,” he was told….”I can give you nothing more until you return.” And so the boy-now-almost-a-man, left the Shaman’s tent and began his journey anew….
And so he walked, placing his feet softly upon the ground so that unless you physically saw him walk by you would find no trace of his passage upon that ground. How swiftly the miles passed beneath his feet, yet still he walked…the horizon still lay far before him, and surely what he sought had to be found there….No unusual sounds pierced his reverie as he trod ever onward, nothing that called his name or made him pause…he stopped only to rest or drink from a passing stream. … he lost track of how many suns and halos of stars lay between him and from whence he had come, he only knew his journey was not done …..
On a day filled with blue skies and still air, he beheld a tree standing beside the path…a tree with bare branches that moved ever so slightly in the still air. He stopped to look up at the branches…they appeared as a net against the sky and he could almost feel them wrapping themselves around him -- but this could not be, the branches were above his head and he could not touch them…was this then how his Spirit Guide was finally reaching out to him? It seemed to the boy that all else around him faded from his consciousness so he knew that he had found the place he sought, and so he sat himself near the base of the tree – not touching or leaning into it, but in front of it … He sat for he knew not how long before the images spilled into him as the Tree Spirit breathed the story to the man…….
Monday, March 8, 2010
Whose life is this, anyway?
..ever have one of those days where it seems like the only person you talked to was yourself, whether in your head or on paper? So many times lately it seems that the email I thought I wrote, never actually left my head because the other person hasn't a clue to what I am referring to...and you know trying to re-create it now just would not be the same as the glorious words you used the 'first time' they were said or written.....sheesh....
Well...I guess I am going to have to get more techie and start using the voice memo App on my phone (once I figure out how, of course)...that might be the ticket to NOT having writer's block, though may pose a problem if the wonderful story ideas and emails and etc did not always take place in the shower when electronics are not a good idea....
So many ideas, not enough time, not enough of Me.....maybe I need a clone...
Well...I guess I am going to have to get more techie and start using the voice memo App on my phone (once I figure out how, of course)...that might be the ticket to NOT having writer's block, though may pose a problem if the wonderful story ideas and emails and etc did not always take place in the shower when electronics are not a good idea....
So many ideas, not enough time, not enough of Me.....maybe I need a clone...
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
When is a house a home ?
As a child, I often wandered thru the nearby woods “exploring” and spending time observing the ongoing saga of minute wildlife and listening in on their “conversations”….It was on one such trek that I discovered a hole in the ground, a depression really, fairly near a deer run. I had often wondered about this small depression in the woods, sitting as it was so close to an old stone wall…what it might have been, what had stood there, what it had been used for…Digging in the dirt within the confines of that depression yielded innumerable treasures, some of which were a puzzle to a child’s mind. The dirt yielded bits of glass, rusted metals and nails, and shards of pottery. The walls of the depression revealed themselves to be just that, walls of stone much like the kind used in old foundations. These walls revealed their age in the number of rooted saplings growing from them, further tearing them down….
And so I imagined…building up this place in my mind and making my own history to go with it. What must these walls have seen in their day? What joys and sadness, what comings and goings, how many seasons had they held it all within? Come with me, if you will, as we go up to the main house from the basement (which is what my imaginations decided this must have been). History says that many old farmhouses that were built on hillsides used the lower story, the ground floor as it were, as the barn area for their animals – protection for their animals from the ‘beasts of prey’ that roamed beyond its walls at night. And without knowing or understanding the science behind it, they used the body heat of their animals so that as the heat rose, the house above could benefit from it. And on this level, the main floor of the house, I stand in the middle of the floor and turn slowly in a circle to examine each corner and direction…I see the entryway to the stairwell, lined with dour-faced portraits of ancestors with their respective children looking equally as dour and stiff, as though upset at losing precious daylight hours of chore time in order to be ‘gussied up for pictures”, and of course all are wearing period clothing of their day….I see the big black corner of the kitchen range (wood-fired of course) peaking through another doorway…. This was the heart of the home in days past. Everyone congregated around the kitchen table to discuss the day’s events and happenings, to break bread together after a long day’s work in the fields, to visit with a neighbor and perhaps share a cup of tea…this was where you would find the matriarch of the clan holding court – this was her domain, and woe to the poor male who dared trod across its clean floor with barn-muddied boots! Here too, was the where the wonderful smells emanated from and permeated every inch of the house with their essence…the scent of warm bread baking and almost ready to eat, vying with the scent of fermenting yeast in a new batch of bread dough that had been set to rise…(yumm…now I want a slice of that heaven!). Turning again to leave the kitchen, I see the fireplace against the far wall in the living room. There is a spinning wheel nearby with cleaned wool waiting to be spun in a basket in front of it. Maman’s chair sits fairly close to the wheel, though I am not sure when she would have had the time to sit…there is another basket by the chair, this one containing an almost completed pair of socks on knitting needles, with almost no yarn left, perhaps waiting for her to spin a bit more in order to finish the sock. Papa’s chair is directly in front of the fireplace… a man’s home is his castle, and of course the king should have the best place to sit… a big comfy chair, one that he can sink into after the hard labors of a typical farm day. A small wooden bench sits nearby, perhaps where the children sat…. a woven or braided rug lies on the floor. Now head upstairs to the sleeping quarters…rather tiny in comparison to the living area downstairs, but functional with a bed, a bureau, a chair, and perhaps a chest for clothing. At the foot of each bed lies a folded quilt, perhaps one the mistress of the house had stitched, made with whatever bits of fabric were available, including those from outgrown or torn clothing… a history if you will….Now I head back down the stairs, again going past the dour countenances lining the wall who almost seem to want to say ‘who are you that you can just walk through my house?’…past the fireplace and spinning wheel that not-so-strangely calls my name…and out the front door before turning back once more to see where I have been…..
Sadly, it is once again a depression in the ground, with moss-covered rocks lining the edge, and stillness in the wood around me…watching, waiting, listening, hoping that someday new life will be breathed into the walls that once stood there….I turn once again and head down the path that will take me out of the woods, promising myself that someday I will come back to this place, some day I will build a house and make a home where once another family called their’s…..what was once old is new again, they say….perhaps here too…..
And so I imagined…building up this place in my mind and making my own history to go with it. What must these walls have seen in their day? What joys and sadness, what comings and goings, how many seasons had they held it all within? Come with me, if you will, as we go up to the main house from the basement (which is what my imaginations decided this must have been). History says that many old farmhouses that were built on hillsides used the lower story, the ground floor as it were, as the barn area for their animals – protection for their animals from the ‘beasts of prey’ that roamed beyond its walls at night. And without knowing or understanding the science behind it, they used the body heat of their animals so that as the heat rose, the house above could benefit from it. And on this level, the main floor of the house, I stand in the middle of the floor and turn slowly in a circle to examine each corner and direction…I see the entryway to the stairwell, lined with dour-faced portraits of ancestors with their respective children looking equally as dour and stiff, as though upset at losing precious daylight hours of chore time in order to be ‘gussied up for pictures”, and of course all are wearing period clothing of their day….I see the big black corner of the kitchen range (wood-fired of course) peaking through another doorway…. This was the heart of the home in days past. Everyone congregated around the kitchen table to discuss the day’s events and happenings, to break bread together after a long day’s work in the fields, to visit with a neighbor and perhaps share a cup of tea…this was where you would find the matriarch of the clan holding court – this was her domain, and woe to the poor male who dared trod across its clean floor with barn-muddied boots! Here too, was the where the wonderful smells emanated from and permeated every inch of the house with their essence…the scent of warm bread baking and almost ready to eat, vying with the scent of fermenting yeast in a new batch of bread dough that had been set to rise…(yumm…now I want a slice of that heaven!). Turning again to leave the kitchen, I see the fireplace against the far wall in the living room. There is a spinning wheel nearby with cleaned wool waiting to be spun in a basket in front of it. Maman’s chair sits fairly close to the wheel, though I am not sure when she would have had the time to sit…there is another basket by the chair, this one containing an almost completed pair of socks on knitting needles, with almost no yarn left, perhaps waiting for her to spin a bit more in order to finish the sock. Papa’s chair is directly in front of the fireplace… a man’s home is his castle, and of course the king should have the best place to sit… a big comfy chair, one that he can sink into after the hard labors of a typical farm day. A small wooden bench sits nearby, perhaps where the children sat…. a woven or braided rug lies on the floor. Now head upstairs to the sleeping quarters…rather tiny in comparison to the living area downstairs, but functional with a bed, a bureau, a chair, and perhaps a chest for clothing. At the foot of each bed lies a folded quilt, perhaps one the mistress of the house had stitched, made with whatever bits of fabric were available, including those from outgrown or torn clothing… a history if you will….Now I head back down the stairs, again going past the dour countenances lining the wall who almost seem to want to say ‘who are you that you can just walk through my house?’…past the fireplace and spinning wheel that not-so-strangely calls my name…and out the front door before turning back once more to see where I have been…..
Sadly, it is once again a depression in the ground, with moss-covered rocks lining the edge, and stillness in the wood around me…watching, waiting, listening, hoping that someday new life will be breathed into the walls that once stood there….I turn once again and head down the path that will take me out of the woods, promising myself that someday I will come back to this place, some day I will build a house and make a home where once another family called their’s…..what was once old is new again, they say….perhaps here too…..
Sunday, February 28, 2010
..and on the fiber front....
Saturday was a bit of a long day, on the road to meet up with my sister for our annual fiber overload day at SPA Spin & Knit VIII -- lots to see, to touch, to discuss, and as my sister put it, it is not only expected but almost required that you stop someone going by you wearing that ___(fill in the blank)....and yes, we have been so stopped..lol. I had on the Magic-shawl I had gotten verbal directions on some years previously: garter stitch, CO 50 sts on large needles (?17 or 19), work until run out of yarn. Do NOT block hard at all....pull it along the length and have a supersoft squishy scarf to wrap around your neck; shake it out by holding the long side and it expands to a very open, airy dressy shawl perfect for nighttime event (I had used a mohair yarn, ~800 yard skein, one skein was all it needed). Had a lot of fun, one lady was so intrigued with my scarf/shawl that she kept sending other friends over to check it out. I probably spent way too much $ at this event, including some new fibers to spin (one of which had sparklies in it and will become another Magic)...for some reason, I was attracted to purples this year, not sure why they called my name but there you go, when a fiber speaks, you listen.
Drove back home after stopping in at a local bakery, When Pigs Fly....yumm! Headed home in a bit of a messy/slushy snowstorm, visibility a little iffy and people driving 10-15 mph LESS than the posted limit (?not from around here or used to driving in this). After a short time at home to re-pack my bag, we headed out to a college hockey game -- hubby drove this time. He works at this college in IT; the men's team won their last home game the week previous, gaining them a spot in the Playoffs, home field advantage for Quarterfinals (the previous 4 weekends we had also attended games, prime knitting time). What a game this was! Two entire periods of play with no goals, but numerous shots on goal Third period started much like the previous two had, the only difference being in that the roughness of play was called out on penalties much more frequently...oh, and a number of broken hockey sticks littered the ice. Shortly after the period began the opposing team scored, which our guys answered within minutes. We should have had another score but the ref's ruled it as Not because the entire puck had not crossed the line (we were sitting in the corner above the goal, so we and the entire student bleacher area directly behind the goal say it did, but it wasn't our call to make)...of course, the question remains, can we call a player in the net a goal ...lol ? Long story short, period ended with score tied 1/1, ruling made for 20-minute Sudden-Death Overtime. I continued to knit until a few minutes into this period where it just got to wild to pay attention to both handwork (even a simple rib pattern) and the game. Our guys scored the decisive game-ender at 4:57 left to play...can you say pandemonioum on ice? helmets flying, pigpile in center ice, cheers and horns....kind of what I expect to see on TV this afternoon when USA plays Canada in the Olympic finale...hmmm, more prime knitting time...sounds good to me!
Drove back home after stopping in at a local bakery, When Pigs Fly....yumm! Headed home in a bit of a messy/slushy snowstorm, visibility a little iffy and people driving 10-15 mph LESS than the posted limit (?not from around here or used to driving in this). After a short time at home to re-pack my bag, we headed out to a college hockey game -- hubby drove this time. He works at this college in IT; the men's team won their last home game the week previous, gaining them a spot in the Playoffs, home field advantage for Quarterfinals (the previous 4 weekends we had also attended games, prime knitting time). What a game this was! Two entire periods of play with no goals, but numerous shots on goal Third period started much like the previous two had, the only difference being in that the roughness of play was called out on penalties much more frequently...oh, and a number of broken hockey sticks littered the ice. Shortly after the period began the opposing team scored, which our guys answered within minutes. We should have had another score but the ref's ruled it as Not because the entire puck had not crossed the line (we were sitting in the corner above the goal, so we and the entire student bleacher area directly behind the goal say it did, but it wasn't our call to make)...of course, the question remains, can we call a player in the net a goal ...lol ? Long story short, period ended with score tied 1/1, ruling made for 20-minute Sudden-Death Overtime. I continued to knit until a few minutes into this period where it just got to wild to pay attention to both handwork (even a simple rib pattern) and the game. Our guys scored the decisive game-ender at 4:57 left to play...can you say pandemonioum on ice? helmets flying, pigpile in center ice, cheers and horns....kind of what I expect to see on TV this afternoon when USA plays Canada in the Olympic finale...hmmm, more prime knitting time...sounds good to me!
Thursday, February 25, 2010
things to make you think.....
..found this on my Einstein Quote of the Day:
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts
Few are those who see with their own eyes and feel with their own hearts
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
If Music be the food of Love, then Play On"
...or something to that effect from the Bard himself, good ole' Will Shakespeare.
This week's luck of the draw is musically inspired, choices were a rather eclectic mix (and this coming from an aficionado of New Age/Dance/Classical/Country/Celtic and ballads). Interesting choices all, but unless the music strikes that chord deep within it is usually passed over -- maybe that is something I should work on to 'extend" myself perhaps and go outside my usual spheres, but for this go round will go with what reached out to me...
..reached out with its rhythmic and resonating heartbeat, grabbed me and held me in place....talking about making a deal with God and swapping places...why does this resonate so strongly now? Is it because I have reached a crossroads where my faith which used to sustain me now feels so empty and unsatisfying? Have I come to that point in the road where Robert Frost says he is sorry he "..could not travel both.." and so he "..took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."
Crossroads...now there's an interesting not-so-small thing....you come to a place where you feel the push/pull, ebb-and-flow within you and around you...you feel your heartbeat echoing in time to the rhythms of the earth beneath your feet, sitting quietly on that hillside transcends you to a place at onece here, but yet also on another plane of existence...you hear the grass grow and the rustling whisper of tree branches as they answer that heartbeat pulsing through the earth...the void fills, but not with silence as is first apparent, but with a roar and you rejoice in that roar because hearing it, and feeling it,... you live it, and the song plays on....
This week's luck of the draw is musically inspired, choices were a rather eclectic mix (and this coming from an aficionado of New Age/Dance/Classical/Country/Celtic and ballads). Interesting choices all, but unless the music strikes that chord deep within it is usually passed over -- maybe that is something I should work on to 'extend" myself perhaps and go outside my usual spheres, but for this go round will go with what reached out to me...
..reached out with its rhythmic and resonating heartbeat, grabbed me and held me in place....talking about making a deal with God and swapping places...why does this resonate so strongly now? Is it because I have reached a crossroads where my faith which used to sustain me now feels so empty and unsatisfying? Have I come to that point in the road where Robert Frost says he is sorry he "..could not travel both.." and so he "..took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference."
Crossroads...now there's an interesting not-so-small thing....you come to a place where you feel the push/pull, ebb-and-flow within you and around you...you feel your heartbeat echoing in time to the rhythms of the earth beneath your feet, sitting quietly on that hillside transcends you to a place at onece here, but yet also on another plane of existence...you hear the grass grow and the rustling whisper of tree branches as they answer that heartbeat pulsing through the earth...the void fills, but not with silence as is first apparent, but with a roar and you rejoice in that roar because hearing it, and feeling it,... you live it, and the song plays on....
Thursday, February 18, 2010
? new beginnings
...trying something new....signed on to a Ravelry group that has you writing something every week, weekly writers workshop! . The first week's theme is A New Beginning. We can be as direct or as generic or as outside-the-box as we please....Well, will try to keep up, though I may just write about the ones that "speak to me" ......
How appropriate that this morning's email from SP was a reflection on contemplating "...how much a smile can change a person's day..." Can I do that? of course I can, and so can you. All it takes is expending a few calories of energy to make your lip muscles curl up -- not such a hard thing to do at all. And, sometimes sending a smile someone's way helps take the edge off the unknown. Haven't you ever walked through a crowded mall and seen an adorable little cherub sleeping in his stroller as the mom tries to get some shopping done? the picture of innocence and serenity always brings a smile to my face....it seems to attract others attention who are so busy just being busy that they have to stop and see what lit up your face, and then they smile too.
So how does this relate to new beginnings? ...and still be able to tie it in with my needlework? Well, how many times do you start your day by logging into Ravelry to look at the new patterns or pictures others have posted of their ongoing projects in your mutual groups, some of which you will comment on? Doesn't the color and/or composition of some of them make you smile? Do you then go and post one of your own photos? ...and you know that someone did smile when they saw it because you find a comment that someone left for you....
So, my take on this is much like the marble game that chase each other around and around that adding another marble just continues the cycle of following the previous in the same pattern that seems to just spread out in an everwidening circle......So, start something, 'smile' at someone in actuality or in writing, and see what happens...
How appropriate that this morning's email from SP was a reflection on contemplating "...how much a smile can change a person's day..." Can I do that? of course I can, and so can you. All it takes is expending a few calories of energy to make your lip muscles curl up -- not such a hard thing to do at all. And, sometimes sending a smile someone's way helps take the edge off the unknown. Haven't you ever walked through a crowded mall and seen an adorable little cherub sleeping in his stroller as the mom tries to get some shopping done? the picture of innocence and serenity always brings a smile to my face....it seems to attract others attention who are so busy just being busy that they have to stop and see what lit up your face, and then they smile too.
So how does this relate to new beginnings? ...and still be able to tie it in with my needlework? Well, how many times do you start your day by logging into Ravelry to look at the new patterns or pictures others have posted of their ongoing projects in your mutual groups, some of which you will comment on? Doesn't the color and/or composition of some of them make you smile? Do you then go and post one of your own photos? ...and you know that someone did smile when they saw it because you find a comment that someone left for you....
So, my take on this is much like the marble game that chase each other around and around that adding another marble just continues the cycle of following the previous in the same pattern that seems to just spread out in an everwidening circle......So, start something, 'smile' at someone in actuality or in writing, and see what happens...
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