Learn to live
July 16, 2008 | Leave a Comment
My heart’s band heart song. (Tindersticks - Don’t ever get tired)
Carry me home
July 13, 2008 | 3 Comments
Sitting at the open window….the silence underlain with a the song of leaves moving in the (rather forceable) summer wind…punctuated with chirps and the clinking clanking of Rosie’s tags as she leaps to attention anytime a bird shadow passes over her…This is my favorite song.
I am finally feeling some sense of peacefulness around our house…Routines reemerging. It took me aback when I realized just how important routines have become to me. Those long ago summer days spent smashing through strange vistas and mindsets, viewing routine as the enemy, as the embodiment of boredom, is in itself prescient…for if it wasn’t fundamental why spend so much energy opposing it?
In the aftermath the structure is the path home.
Lemons, time, god & blessings
July 11, 2008 | 5 Comments
When life gives you lemons…
We’re home. Stitched and shaven, soul weary…but home. That is lemonade.
I realize that the most dire crises in my life have been mitigated by the small things. The stolen moments spent looking at the clouds. Knowing that they will soon bring rain, but enjoying them for just this moment. The things that are normally greatly irritating have become balm…the short periods I spend pulling the millions of elm seedlings out of my garden is suddenly lemonade. Letting things go that don’t matter right now used to bring anxiety, now it is refreshing…lemonade.
Time
It always confounds me that when my life stops, the whole time machine keeps ticking along. The piles of unpaid bills, the unanswered calls, the garden profuse and untended…I suppose it makes me feel unimportant in the grand scheme of life, and I suppose that is the lesson of ego…I am really nothing in the grand context, simply a small part of everything else.
god
I spent a good deal of time in the hospital coming to terms with god. That said, as I was working on a piece for a client (promoting a trip to Mexico) I read about the religious significance of masks in the indigenous cultures. And it said everything to me. They believe that every god has two aspects. The light side and the dark side. And both are equal. And so I’ve come to terms with god…and, I am strangely at peace with it all.
Blessings
All of you are my blessings. I can’t tell you how much your words and actions have brought comfort to my heart these days. You are the angels of the light side of god.
The great BD. A blessing beyond my wildest dreams and a father unlike any other on earth.
Egbert. For being the greatest teacher anyone could ever have on the journey.
I cherish you all so much. {xo}
Sitting in Limbo
June 25, 2008 | 12 Comments
——Sitting here in Limbo, waiting for the tide to flow; sitting here in Limbo, knowing that I have to go; well, they’re putting up resistance, but I know my faith will lead me on.
Our beauty girl is in the hospital again. The beast has infected her shunt and she is great danger of it entering her brain. So for the past days we have been holding our breath….the great news is that the tap revealed that A.) it isn’t the virulent form of staph, B.) and better still, it hasn’t reached her brain! The bad news is that at 6 pm she is going to go into the first of a series of surgeries that will have us living here, in Limbo, for the rest of summer.
Keep us in your prayers, if you pray, and in your good thoughts if you think. We love you.
Solstice baby
June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
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Rose turned one on the summer solstice. Doesn’t she look like the bright sunshine? And she is so good. When she’s not being naughty. Her quest is to dig through to China, which, I keep explaining, is dangerous for her species. Buffet anyone?
Choosing battles
June 18, 2008 | 3 Comments
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“Yo arms too short to box with god.”
And so it seems. Just when you think you have reached the chocolate box, and you’ve tasted your first piece of sweetness, here come the poking fingers of Moe, and inevitably, they are the two you didn’t pick.
I suppose I could rail against the forces. Cry out in righteous indignation. Fight like the human in me wants to fight. Flinging punches into the sky. But it is a futile match. The more you fight, the more he notices you. It’s best to put on your pink glasses and protect your eyes so that when he pokes you, you can still see the morning light that will, eventually, peek through your window pane.
Skyward father!
June 15, 2008 | 4 Comments
The luckiest child in the world, and father that makes her so.
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The world is more magnificent from the air. When we are flying, the dread hand of earth, with all of its finite pressure, can no longer grasp us. We lose ourselves in flights of fancy, and worlds of our own imaginings. When are lifted up we can see that there is something extraordinarily beautiful in our humanness. We realize that the pungent decomposing earth is there to rise from. And, if we are lucky, it is our fathers who show us where the sky flowers are blooming.
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Books are Butterflies
4″x7″ watercolor on paper
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I too am lucky. I have two fathers, George and Joe (Yorgos and Guisseppe.) George crafted my wings and kept throwing me up in air, hoping that I would figure out how to use them. He really had no regard to danger, or direction. He was just interested in the freedom of open sky. Even on earth he lived up there. He never supported us materially, but he brought home the tools that gave me flight. The things that keep me from being buried too deeply in this mundane world.
Joe stands by me, watching without judgement, praying that I won’t fly too close to the sun. He is the one that hovers between both worlds, able to sink his feet into the earth, and able to rise above it all too. He is a dutiful man who sees the sad world with clear eyes and can still find laughter in little things.
The fathers in my life have lifted me up, and because of them I can fly. And so can my daughter who happens to have been born to the world’s greatest flight instructor.
Epiphany
May 19, 2008 | 3 Comments
—–The hand that wipes away our tears.
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It is always the unexpected that causes me to pause. The flight out of the ordinary, into a place of stillness and remembering. And it is usually the meandering path that leads me there.
This weekend was beautiful. The perfect sky, young green and pink canopied streets and the vibrant stumble into parts of town less traveled. And suddenly I found myself inside of a sugar egg. The sublime light and colorful jewel interior of the egg was perfect. The smell of copal and bee’s wax permeated everything, and from outside my shell I could hear the joyous Balalaika music that was being played on the lawn.
I stood in the middle of the space, at once glorious, and yet incredibly intimate. I made a journey around the edges first, my eyes soaking in the richness of the tapestries, the polished gold, the pink and green icons floating above in a robin’s egg concave, and the simple sweetness of the stained glass windows. So I did what came naturally. I cried. And then I lit a candle and remembered all my blessings.
——The hand isn’t mine, and the church isn’t the same one, but it says enough. And reminds me never to be without my camera again.
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I grew up submersed in the Orthodox Church. Surrounded by the mystery of tomes read in Greek, choir folding over me from above, copal entering my pores, communion of bread and wine and the walk to the nave– cupping the little light in my hands until I could set it into the sand–always sticky with pooled bee’s wax.
So it occurred to me….standing inside the egg, light years from that flame bearing child…that I was formed here. The odd and unusual, so out of context in a mundane existence, fills my imagination, and when I peek inside, little figures, resplendent in lamé and fancy hats, are sauntering forth to greet me.
May day
May 8, 2008 | 5 Comments
The first weekend in May brought with it my heart. I can feel the pleasurable sensation of sprouting life pushing through the frozen muscle. It has been a long winter. The buds are finally mirroring my thoughts, greening, suddenly…the magnolias and flowering almonds are finally feeling the safety necessary for their emergence. It is the most primal example of faith, tested sorely during the darkness of late winter.
Sunday stories:
Another example of faith. We can indeed grow where we are planted.
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Swim exuberantly and carry a big stick. That is Rosie’s motto as she cuts her way through the roiling currents of the Mississippi.
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What’s better than a happy dog? Three happy dogs!
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What’s better than three happy dogs? Phoebe, BD and the Phoenix boat at the May Day celebration in the park.
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The unexpected life is certainly worth living.
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Here comes the sun. Sailed on the Phoenix to the center of the lake.
IF-seed
May 2, 2008 | 2 Comments
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Was that the flicker of a little girl?
Some moments that start meaningless
You just want to feel safe, you just want to be loved,
And you know there’s no better place than this.
-tindersticks