Prayer For Moving To A New Town

At fifty seven years old
I look back at all the botched
relationships I'm partially responsible
for, and weep.

It makes me treasure the ones
who've stood by all the high maintenance
and high passions with durable
endurance.

These are strange years -
such unfamiliar social
cultures we're living through.

I miss the old family gatherings when
everyone held an instrument
or used their voice to sing or
storytell.

The laughter from the retold
and the tears from sad lyrics handed down
gave me security as I fell asleep
wrapped up in soft
murmurs.

I miss crowded homes with
tables heavy with
sustenance and comfort.

I miss simple. I miss old fashioned fun.

I'm lonely, but not bored,
nor uncomfortable being alone.
They say creative ones are
never bored - but where
is the companionship
that the internet can't
supply? Skin to touch and
eyes to look into? Contagious
smiles to reflect? Where do I find
the other lonely ones?

Where do I find friendship
if I am tired of sitting in
a pew looking at the back
of people's heads - and bars
and clubs don't excite me ?

New town, please
utilize what I have to offer -
find me a few good friends
who might enjoy someone
who is still learning how to
be a friend?

New town, keep me from winter
kill. I beg you, please allow spring
to resurrect me tender and green.
Let me take root in a wild,
riotous border - bursting with color
and welcoming scent.

Rain

Every fall 

I try to change

my mind about

rain - talking myself 

out of dread 

and reframing it 

as being a desirable thing

to celebrate and relish. 

An annual epiphany 

I must revisit often -

since I live in the Pacific

Northwest close to a Rain 

Forest on an island 

where rain 

happens. 

Water of any kind 

makes me happy. 

Rain is water. 

This equation needs

embossed on my brain. 

I raise my arms to welcome

rain today, tomorrow

and the day after - 

like the mighty cedar

does. 

Pertaining To Coming Home and Moisture

All things estival have come to a swift
end.

Leaves falling crisp in the Rockies
follow me back home to soggy - where
blackbirds hunch shoulder to shoulder
drip, drip on a dripping high wire.

A statuesque blue heron
stands knee deep and still in high tide
blending into slate blue skies.

The inside of my dry, cracked nose welcomes
the drizzle.

I have front row parking
on the ferry. My thirsty skin,
eyes and heart want the windshield
barrier gone - it keeps me from the salt spray.
The freezing wind makes me thankful for it.


Logs float on the chop. I hope to
spot a seal's watchful eyes.

Ahhh ...
the absolute relief of being at one
again with salt water.



**(My friend Susan read this and asked if I'd seen Blue Mind In the Desert Ted Talk by Wallace J. Nichols.) I hadn't. Yet. It is fantastic. I just ordered his book and will find a blue marble to remind me....

Summing It Up

Isak Dinesen begins with "I had a farm in Africa...."

I once had gardens fruiting and flowering, a porch swing, and a beachy home where a selkie could feel perfectly at home whilst land locked.

Now, my love and I come home sweat grimed, looking like coal miners. Some days we speed to work on a boat to another island and pile into a van loaded with sweaty men who know how to work and make road problems vanish. They execute delicate maneuvers with monster machines. Artistic flourishes with dirt, gravel and oil? Yes.

Life is different, inconvenient and awkward now. We are camping out in a teeny-tiny studio. This is what it's come down to. I puzzle over why I'm not completely miserable? Why am I so comfortable?

Maybe it's because the tent out in the yard has been up all summer and occupied with people who want to come visit? Or perhaps it's the porpoises, whales, starfish, and beach glass I find? Or how I'm learning to fish? Or the eagles and blue herons that fly by, curious? Is it Tessa's picturesque garden she shares with me? Maybe it's the smell of salt water coming in on the breeze, or the rhythm of living with the tides?

What will I remember fondly about this year, in ten years? I don't think it was what Isak Dinesen had that made her life story a riveting one, it was everything pulsing around the experience and adventure of that farm in Africa.

View From My Kayak-Deer Harbor

Seeing things from the water, looking up. Paradigm shift. 

Views From a Kayak - Mountain Lake

 Rope Swing 

Tell Me The Secret

Hillel Neuer's Question Put to the UN

Here is the video. There is not a peep in the room when he asks this question at the end. Apartheid is real....but the truth will surprise you.

Watch Eyeless in Gaza (streaming on Amazon) to understand how journalists fearfully self censor and are forcefully censored.....silenced so we are unable to hear the truth.

Shelter

What Hate Speech Is

Young

More Life

Trump is Like Oxygen

What if he's like 

the mask an airplane

lets down in the event 

of a looming catastrophe 

dispensing

vital oxygen? What if we 

are oblivious to the 

rescue offered?

We push away this 

sustaining substance

because we find 

the equipment’s

delivery system 

(yellow plastic held by elastic)

unpalatable.  

We prefer 

to suffocate as we crash

to the tune of foreign, 

unfamiliar 

calls to worship crying out

to a god we 

do not know while our

own remains uninvited. This

(anthem parenthesis) 

cocoons angry women 

who in tender

moments administer rituals 

to initiate each other 

into wearing modesty 

by way of

hijab - draping  

our American flag 

around their heads

and necks as a symbol -  

consenting, ironically, 

and (un)knowingly 

to sharia law.

I'm going out on a limb (naked) by writing this - because I'm disturbed to my core. The core I didn't even know I had! I did not vote out of discouragement and hopelessness. After some digging, I'm wishing I had voted for Trump after all. Hate me too, if you will.

I'm confused with the hatred toward him and the hatred displayed by the women's marches. 

Not Wearing A Pink Hat

Uncharacteristically, 

today I listened to 35 minutes 

of what's considered news 

by thousands who tune in. 

Top news? Starburst

has a new package of 

all pink candy.

And a new app called 

Women Interrupted 

was highly recommended

to much applause. 

I confess: Women marching 

in silly pink pussy hats

spewing their own brand of

putrid hate is not silly at all

and makes me embarrassed 

to call myself 

a woman.  

 Does this app 

also track how 

many times women 

interrupt other women

or how many times women

interrupt men? 

The bullied become bullies. 

The tolerant aren't so tolerant. 

Facts are buried. Opinions go

viral in a world turned upside down, 

backwards and inside out.

Earl told us to learn to live with irony.

But I'm losing the hang of it. 

The only thing I can hold on to, 

the only thing familiar, 

the only thing I know any 

more when I see it - 

is love. 

It's still the same 

all over the world -

yesterday,

 today

and forever. 

It never ends. 

Amen.  

Tasmania

Steps and Stairs 

 

A Bertie Wooster Day

"As I sat in the bathtub soaping a meditative foot and singing, if I remember correctly, 'Pale Hands I Loved Beside the Shalimar', it would be deceiving my public to say that I was feeling a boomps-a-daisy."   -P.G. Wodehouse 

....it would be deceiving my public to say that everything is swell, so I am going to remind myself that I have had an incredible life (and the story isn't even over yet) by doing a random wordy free fall bungee jump...right on the threshold of....something....new? It came out just like this, in this order. My life, it's so big. I forget sometimes to be awed and grateful.



I’ve lived in California, Idaho, Florida, Colorado, North Dakota, Washington and Alaska. I’ve seen

Petra, the Atlantic, the Pacific, the Med, the Red, the Dead, DC, Ohio, Iowa, Florida, Kansas,

Nevada, Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, Arizona, New Mexico, Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi,

California, Alaska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Nevada, Idaho, Hawaii - Maui, Big Island, Kauai,

 Oregon, Montana, Maryland, Jordon, Israel, Germany, Scotland, Ireland, Austria, Wales, Australia,

 Tasmania, British Columbia, Alberta. I’d like to see Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, Maine,

Pennsylvania, Virginia, Wisconsin, South Africa, isle of wight, Cornwall, The Hebrides. I’d like to

bicycle around Lake Michigan, the Great River Road, Paddle parts of the Missouri, the Snake, the

Columbia, and the Colorado Rivers.I can cut hair, cook for crowds, build with wood, weave baskets,

sculpt, weave, embroidery, crochet, make paper flowers, draw, paint, give affection, have amazing

orgasms, take pictures, edit, write poetry, write, I’ve been obscurely published 3 times, I’ve met

Kathleen Norris, Nigel Goodwin, Gregory Wolfe, Jeff Overstreet, Scott Cairns, Lucy Shaw, John

 Hoyte, Gregory Orr, Patricia Hampl, Warren Farha, Michael Card, David and Karen Nee, David

Dark, Sarah Masen, Charlie and Andi Ashworth, Over The Rhine, Steve Laube, Jerry Root, Earl

 Palmer, Dick Staub, and Eugene and Jan Peterson which means I might as well have met Bono. I

had a beautiful garden and a hospitable home. I’ve served thousands of people food. I have 2

daughters who love me and husband who’s been faithful, undeservedly. I have seen nuns ride horses

 in full habit. I’ve seen the northern lights. I’ve heard rocks roar and felt the ground tremble in

Hawaii. I’ve heard the rocks sing in Yelapa, Mexico. I’ve watched a young man shoot heroin. I heard

God laugh - twice. He danced with me once. He teased me on the beach twice. I’ve watched a

silversmith engrave, a cowboy braid leather in the round for a whip, a potter wrestle 15 pounds of

clay into a bread  bowl for me. I’ve seen a horse trained and a donkey pack. I’ve milked a cow and

collected eggs, I’ve butchered chickens and cried for my butchered lamb. I’ve seen had a lamb and

 dog put down. I’ve picked corn, hoed beets, planted beans, stacked hay, and dug potatoes. I’ve

harvested berries and filled a freezer. I’ve said “maybe next year for years. I intimately know the

mystery of sourdough and am still fascinated, after 35 years. I yearn for an outdoor stone hearth oven,

a place by the salt water, a whitehall slide seat row boat, an ocean kayak, I think horse toots are the

sweetest perfume. I have given thanks because He asked me to. I’ve hiked Tasmania’s Overland

Track I’ve wept more tears than I knew I had. I’ve seen, picked up, saved, and given away thousand

of heart shaped rocks. I feel blessed when I see rainbows, shooting stars, and pennies. I have gambled

with a quarter doing heads or tails with God. It didn’t turn out well. He didn’t want me addicted to

knowing for sure. I have crossed latitudes and divides, great rivers and oceans. I have seen old man’s

beard dripping to the ground and gravestones resting beside the sea. I have seen mill stones used for

gates keeping happy sheep. I saw a wallaby stretch her pocket out for her joey. I’ve laid down new

flooring and painted a 2 story house. I think I felt an angel correct me at the wheel. I believed I heard

God’s audible voice once as a child. But it must not have been. I’ve imagined myself into Little

House on the Prairie as well as Pride and Prejudice. I feel the punch or cut or birth pangs in movies.

 Blood makes me faint. I get motion sick on merry go rounds and swings -now that I’m old - which

makes me sad. I crave avocados, roasted vegetables, filberts, peanut butter and raw milk. I play piano

badly only in the key of C. I used to play accordion. I can pick up an harmonica and make music. I

wish I played the banjo. I want to learn more about stone boats, stone soup and hearthstones -

anchoring hospitality to safe harbors where people commune together. I love to garden with my

 daughter. I’ve seen opium poppy fields. Moab’s Arches is my favorite National Park. My favorite

 childish memory was watching my father fell and chop trees. I come from a formidable family of pie

 snobs. Everyday I pray to notice and learn how to love. I've tried to incubate eggs in between my

 breasts. I read several books simultaneously. I have a compulsion to read every word I see and can't

stop myself. I used to suck my thumb as a child. I'm currently homeless. I just found out there was

another child like me long ago. Her name was Catherine. Laura Riding wrote her four letters. I read

them on Brainpickin's and now know I'm not alone.

After the Snow

I see baby buds strain
against the tension -
shiny, tight, pink skins pursue
growth. Winter's wood resists,
unsure of being split
open like this -

she can't remember
the joyous juices running
warm last spring.

Trade Ins

I had sent a link of Mike Rowe's Ted Talk to our friend, Kevin. He replied, "Thank you for that. It makes me wish I was 25 again and had a life do over... Not really, but I often wonder what the future holds. Mike says the tools of today are what we carry around with us and I suspect that’s true - but what do I do with them? My iPhone makes a lousy hammer." 

His last juicy steak of a line made me perk up. What a prompt. This poem popped into my head.....





My iPhone Makes a Lousy Hammer

there’s no satisfying thud

as it hits it’s mark

no contact with iron

pounding into wood 

no gratifying muscle-work

balancing a weighted tool

no finished piece to use 
or gift to generously give 

there's nothing to leave 
my maker's mark on 

nowhere to say 
this was made by me.  

Mike recommended Matthew Crawford's Shop Class As Soulcraft, which Craig and I enjoyed so much on Audible that we bought the hard copy also. He has another book out now called The World Beyond Our Head which I'm in the middle of reading. 

Another book I'm simultaneously pairing with it is Wonderland by Steven Johnson....