Email.
Met with the statement “You are invisible.” Given the option to “Go visible.”
A lot there. With a mere click, one can go from unseen, hidden, or simply ignored, to seen, consuming space, accounted for.
Magic.
Archive for the ‘Reflections on the everyday’ Category
It happens
Posted in Reflections on the everyday on August 5, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Fireflies
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, The Garden on July 31, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Twilight is a favorite time. The obvious recedes, ambiguity comes to the fore.
This year there are more fireflies than ever before. Inclined to shade and shrubbery, it is only now my space is mature enough to host these bioluminescent marvels. Their numbers are not great, but enough.
It is well known fireflies blink to attract, a happier purpose than predation. It suits me.
Fireflies delight with promised, but erratic light, and seemingly serendipitous flight plans. Treasured for their mystery, they often turn up well away from where you might expect them – much like the more wondrous things in life.
Were the light of a firefly constant, as with sunlight, the refrain would reveal a path. Fireflies, fireworks and shooting stars reveal more the art of life – sudden illumination, a wish, a wonder, if sometimes only in the periphery. Unexpected delight and quiet darkness left longing for more.
Shelter
Posted in Reflections on the everyday on July 29, 2011| 1 Comment »
My house is a standard split-level, not so big. Looks like a lot of houses around here, nothing special to see.
With a few window frames to be replaced, my house has siding in need of power washing, and a driveway with a crack or two underway. Carpet is bunching just a bit, linoleum is tired.
My house is surrounded by a garden unlike any other in this burg. Home to the wind and all that flies on it, hummingbirds, monarch butterflies, a thousand flowers, and sometimes – if and unless careful, the Baba Yaga.
My house has a window etched with the crookedy script of my son’s name, when he was six. That and other windows are the same I looked out as I walked countless nights carrying my children when sick with croup, or just to see the moon.
My house is memory, and more is added to it every day, every season.
My house is mine. I finally closed last night on refinancing that provides me the opportunity of paying monthly until I am 81 years old. I am grateful.
My life has always wanted refuge, a place where doors close on the cold, and open to the warm – and temperature has nothing to do with it.
There was a parade of thunderstorms last night. Lightening, rain, and sometimes a few stars illuminated my world far into the night. A perfect celebration.
Thermodynamics
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday on July 20, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Flash! One second on, two seconds off, flash, flash.
No, not a lighthouse, just a perimenopausal female.
Being a woman of a certain age, I experience more hot flashes these days – the mark of time on my biology. While some women suffer a great deal with hot flashes, mine come and go quickly, seasonal life change registered in flesh, instead of through thought or environment.
While the very act of living is to inhabit an animal body, hot flashes, at least for me, amplify that experience. Intense, heated skin sidetracks an ever busy mind into grounded, expansive physicality. A pause, a flash, the wanton luxury of feeling deeply, searingly alive. Makes a gal want to toss back her head and howl at the moon – or the sun.
This aging business – sometimes it is not so bad.
In the trees
Posted in Nature, Reflections on the everyday on July 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Watching the midnight moon do a silhouette tango with a grove of trees I had not before noticed.
Tall, swaying, reaching. Following them branch to base, had to laugh. They are my trees, quaking aspens, planted from slender sticks years ago, now long above the roofline.
Populus tremuloides, known for their sensitive hearing and responsive nodding to notes on the wind. Archaic associations with the regenerative cycle of the moon itself. Folks of that ilk always find favor with me.
The music ended, the moon glided on, leaving the trees to their onward stretch to the stars.
Sweat
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, The Garden on July 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »
It is hot. Clouds in the west hint of thunderstorm, wind over the lake promises humidity instead.
Sweat rolls down my face like tears. Hardscrabble ground. Years I spent piling up a rich facade of compost and nutrient rich top soil washed away in heavy spring rains – revealing original ground. Rock pocked sandy loam. What’s here is here. Up to me to make something of it. Tough to hoe, even on the level.
For a number of years I have been cultivating a xeric attitude. Plant for true ground, right plant – right place, forget fancy stuff that does not endure. Use resources at hand instead of cultivating landscapes of falsity. Survival, adaptability, matters.
Except a bit of lawn. Rolling green soothes eye and toe. Mine got away from me last year, weeds smothered. Weeds returned this year, but I am back. Persistent toil – holding steady.
Those that know me understand my fondness for garden photography. My way of giving garden tours that none see in person. This is not a year for pictures, vignettes – some empty – some still filling with young plants, new ideas.
Sweat equity – heat, work and true ground.
Independence Day
Posted in Psycho-Bubbles, Reflections on the everyday on July 6, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Blue sky, yellow balloon.
Or rather five balloons. With silver strings. The number five – hieros gamos – one with the Other this time around. I am me.
At the ball park, a scene never more beautiful. Birds, breeze and the trees in attendance.
Was it letting go, or calling forth? Excitement as the balloons sought traction in their natural medium. Laughter as they percolated skyward and east. East to new beginnings.
I watched them only until far and away – not though, until out of sight. I need now to see which way to go. Soaring, determined, with sun glinting off their sides.
Far and away, my own Independence Day.
Bumped
Posted in Reflections on the everyday on July 3, 2011| Leave a Comment »
Yesterday while procuring supplies for the 4th of July, another car rear-ended mine at a stop sign.
A young man, with a graduated driver license, was not watching the road, improper lookout, they used to call it. Young energy bumping up against the rules.
No one likes car accidents, even minor fender-benders. In addition to physical or automobile damage, accidents immediately alter reality. At least for me. The sickening thud that feels and sounds like nothing else, creates a distorted oasis of reality around involved parties and cars.
I am sensitive to distorted reality. Two years of inflamed, inappropriate divorce rhetoric gives stark evidence to the damage people can wreck on the lives of others.
Although the bump in this case nary made a scratch, I dutifully copied down the apologetic young man’s contact and insurance information. I recognized his last name and inquired. Yes, he is the nephew of the fellow who owns and runs the automotive repair shop here in town. Best car maintenance I ever experienced, fine people, great service.
I finished writing down the information, told him to give my name and number to his mom, whose insurance information I had just recorded. It was not my place to deliver the lecture on paying attention – but I am guessing she will.
With the exchange of information, the distortion receded. A mistake was made, examined by the parties, apologies, and a new connection made.
The ease with which this shock dissipated helped me. Daily challenges shape perception and response. Some mistakes are to be forgotten, others are important to remember. Destiny is figuring out which is which.
I left the young man and his friend with a smile and a wish for their happy 4th of July.
Now
Posted in Reflections on the everyday on July 2, 2011| Leave a Comment »
A mom checks on a summer camp registration. Big Mac lunch for the man out on business calls. Air conditioning quit – a small part replaced – luckily, still under warranty. A haircut that needs to get scheduled.
Deeds of the everyday. Undertaken, typically forgotten. Sometimes but rarely momentous.
Living out days, spinning small memories that represent the biggest part of life. The background of doing, breathing and being.
Call it mundane – call it the very best of life.
Mending Fences
Posted in Reflections on the everyday, The Garden on July 1, 2011| Leave a Comment »
My garden needs work. For two growing seasons it soldiered on alone – the help I gave it minimal.
Overgrown, undergrown, thatch that kept water from roots. A fence breached, rodents and rabbits ran through, tender plants eaten.
It is coming back. The fence is fixed, containing what is within, protecting from that without. Re-bound – assert, restate rightful borders. Good fences make good neighbors, and good gardens too.
Carefully I cultivate the garden’s own volunteer seedlings, filling empty space with variation already present. Inexpensive, quiet, make it yourself. Garden economy.
Rich ground – finding its roots, stretching for sun, watching storms pass, drinking the rain. Mending itself, mending me. It is good work.
Shouldn't...but Do 