The Feeding Place

Pigs feed on offal.

Chickens follow pigs and cows

around to eat the leftovers

dropping out the backside.

Vultures and crows find road kill

and carrion.

Swans and seagulls follow

new rows of black turned earth.

So will I find goodness

to feed on.

Historic Ebey's Landing - Whidbey Island, Washington

The Twinkle in His Eyes

Our little neighbor girl - the one who knocks on the door wondering if we can do art - came over to show me a craft she had done at school.

Craig let her in the door to my bedroom. She finds me having a dark day in bed with cramps and a heating pad. She climbs up, starts to get under the covers then wiggles out as she sees the gallon jar of buttons sitting on the nightstand. I tell her some of them were my grandmother's, and when I was little I spent many happy hours sorting and looking at them. 

I ask her if she wants to play with them. She says, sure, this jar isn't heavy for a strong girl like me - lugs it over to the bed, unscrews the lid and dumps it upside down. 

We spend slow time picking out big brown boulders, greens for leaves and grass, and brightly colored ones for flowers. She makes a button garden path across my white bedspread. We take a chatty stroll.  

I tell her it's time to go - we need to clean up - then I'm going to finish my movie.

She asks if she can watch it with me. No, it is in French and you probably wouldn't like it or understand it. 

Well, I speak French and my teacher calls me her gold nugget, she says. I burst into a belly laugh that displaces my cramps and makes me hemorrhage. You are my gold nugget too, Paige. I agree completely with your teacher. 

Say joi de vivre, Paige.  She repeats it - copying my poor accent. 

That is French. It means joy of life. You have the joy of life, girl. I'm so glad you come and share it with me.

I know, she says as she climbs down, tosses her curls, gets her boots on, and leaves. 

You're the Teacher's gold nugget, too, and he's always glad when you dance into the room. You being there makes his eyes twinkle. 

I Don't Know How to Knit

It wasn't about taking her to

 my favorite yarn shop

to meet the fascinating

 Finnish proprietress. 

It wasn't about having 

a Thai lunch afterward 

across the cobbled street.

It wasn't ever about knitting.

It wasn't about me 

talking her ear off while

 I held her captive.

It wasn't about taking 

pictures of us together, then

 tagging her on Facebook 

so the world would know

I had the honor of spending

 the entire afternoon with her.

I didn't have plans to tire her

 with my latest poetry 

or ask for advice about

writing a book.

Even though the colors and

 textures of shelves

 bursting with yarn send me

 into kinesthetic ecstasy

 and sensorial bliss

I must confess - I don't

know how to knit. 

I wanted to be with her 

 to taste old soul wisdom,

eat satisfying words,

 touch a silky hand, 

and follow her gaze.

I wanted to be with her 

because I can't find any kindred,

unencumbered, uncluttered, 

spiritual direction and validation

to help me explore these new, 

 unfamiliar menstrual pauses.

I wanted to be with her 

because I'm hungry for keen

observations, reminiscent 

memories of childhood, and lively,

  sprightly humor teetering on 

the ledge between proper and 'im'.

I wanted to be with her 

because I don't know where to find

older women who tell catastrophic

 stories that leave me wondering how

they survived the pain, or how God

transformed it into eucatastophe? 

Where are the women who, 

while telling about

the worst part 

of a life altering disaster

don't mind pausing while I ask,

but then what happened?

Who’ll shrug and smile, well,

I'm not sure exactly what

happened after that, but here

I am. 

I want reminded

how the story ends, 

 —  because the middle part

gets knotted and tangled.

And I don’t know how to knit. 

My timing was off. 

Just prior to my invitation she had

purchased her winter’s stash of yarn. 

She knows how to knit. 

Grandpa's Boot Trees and Valise

I smother 

his boots and valise 

with leather butter 

and wipe wood oil 

into the interlocking

 pieces of his boot trees 

trying to make his

  memory live again. 

Putting words down

on paper is the only way

 to reconstitute a hydrated 

version. Let it stand. 

Crayon Alchemy

Give a child

two sheets of waxed paper

crayons minus their wrappings

a sharpener or potato peeler and

an iron you don't care about. 

Let down the ironing board

to her belly height. 

Give a child time to be 

an alchemist 

and a roll of tape. 

She will turn your window

into a stained glass rose 

worthy of the finest 

cathedral on earth.

You will remember

again how to sit still

and let the colors of life 

pierce through until

you worship. 

Pedaling Tandem on a One Seat Bike

I'm finally comfortable riding my bike fourteen miles without stopping.
I'm learning how to shift smoothly, right before I need the change.
I'm enjoying the trail, able to notice the flora and fauna -- while breathing simultaneously.
I'm no longer a heavy drag on Craig.
I'm not noticing any difference in my weight or body structure. This matters not.
I'm feeling the warmth creep into my muscles, and anticipate it.
I'm looking forward to that G-Spot on the trail. The part where sacred waits for me to return.

I always yell as loud as possible -- I LOVE YOU GOD -- with no hands.

The deer, eagles, mice, rabbits, slugs, and woodpeckers stop everything - concurring with holy silence.

Then He breathes on me his pleasure. I feel it begin on the top of my head. It drips over me like a
wide nozzled shower head, covering all of me.

I hesitate to confess -- my brain throbs in time with my swollen heart and tingling skin. My body melts.

Great sobs of joy erupt, enlarging my rib cage. Tears blind me. I can barely breathe.

It's alright, because in that place on the trail I find myself clinging to Someone else, a tandem tangle.

Here Be Dragons

say the ancient cartographers

marking dangerous places

outside familiar territory. 

Disasters befall adventurers

who dare to travel past 

publicly approved comfort zones. 

Green lights keep everyone safe. 

Tight fences keep bad guys out. 

Regulations assure and reassure. 

Airport security finds hidden danger 

before it grounds a plane. Our own 

FDA makes sure meat, and milk are pure. 

Right? 

I’d rather meet Linford and Karen

at the edge of the world, and face down

the fiercest, fire breathing dragons 

than live in a world where natural cob

homes are outlawed and destroyed 

and their builders put behind bars,

where by the book inspectors sign off 

on conventional houses that pass

but shouldn’t, 

where real estate agents persuade 

young married's to buy a house they

can't afford, hanging them upside down,

where raw milk from real cows

eating green grass is condemned, 

and cooked honey is considered safe, 

where pharmaceuticals try to corner the market

making herbal home remedies illegal, and give  

doctors plenty of free, questionable samples 

where the only remedy for pain 

or sleeplessness is a pill, and being 

disturbed or uncomfortable is intolerable.  

where choices to legally homeschool 

are trying to be taken away by a government 

that legally let me abort life, 

where pure cotton is loaded with pesticides,

and peanuts are grown in that same ground 

after the damage is done, 

where bleached, separated, modified, manipulated grain grown 

in lifeless, weedless ground is blamed for 

glucose intolerance in pasta, pastry, and bread,

where women ruin their eyesight with lash extensions,

deform their mouths with duck lip injections, and try to make

down there look like an airbrushed pubescent girl, 

where women think large lumpy breasts, rump lifts, liposuction, and 

facelifts are necessary for self focused happiness, and lovely brown skin 

dies trying to bleach itself white. 

Go ahead and cook your brains -- straighten your dyed, curly hair, watch TV until you forget how to converse, swing your marriage, don’t die of natural causes - let chemo and radiation take your last dollar and your last vista view. Throw away all your books, give up your guns, immunize your babies, get a flue shot every year, take fluoride on all fronts, soak your house in formaldehyde, let it preserve your body when you die, cover the ocean in a layer of plastic soup, melt the glaciers, buy another car, just try to poison the super duper yellow jackets, fleas, giant wasps, try to cure the lyme disease epidemic, let the government shut down, bake a turkey that lives with 20,000 others in a cesspool barn gasping for light and fresh air, eat tasteless eggs, and BBQ beef that smells like feces. 

I’m feeling partly paralyzed and completely confused by what is allowed and disallowed. Approved of and not approved of. It seems all turned around crazy. We're upside down, backwards, topsy turvy, and inside out. 

I want to be a dangerous expedition hungry adventurer who’s not of afraid going where there be dragons. I wish I could get ahold of one of those old maps so I knew what direction to head off toward.  

 I can’t, so I’m just going to follow Over the Rhine to Nowhere Farm, where they left the edges wild. 

Meet Me At The Edge Of The World could start the next revival, become the latest manifesto, start the newest trend. But it won't, because most people are more afraid of dragons. 

Peter Turchi's Maps of the Imagination: The Writer as Cartographer prompted this crazy rant. Don't blame him.  

I take full responsibility. I know this is badly written, but I am sooooooooo mad about the crazy things going on in our world. Forgive me if you want, but I'm not sorry. :) 

   

Taking the Waters at Soap Lake

Sunshine leaves

echoes of light

bouncing off 

healing water

cupped between

pentagon stacks

of baked basalt

lining hot
canyon walls

where table top

mesas remember

 silhouette reliefs

of the ancient ones 

who came
for healing -

taking the water

before we did. 

Locals ask if you're taking the water. This means soaking in it for health reasons, not drinking it.

Soap Lake has an ancient history we don't know much about and a more recent history.

Native Americans called it Smokiam, which means "healing waters" and Let-to-to-weints, which is said to mean "healing water springs." 

Be sure to stay at The Inn at Soap Lake. The grounds are lovely. 

Winter Wheat

It sprouts -

It cocoons -

It ripens - 

It dies -

  It gives -

life via 

berries ground 

mixed with water

leavened to rise 

 baked brown 

broken for bellies 

 hungry for more 

than bread alone. 

More than any other growing thing besides those plants and trees that somehow put down roots in pure rock, winter wheat gives me a big dose of courage. I know what it faces during the long winter, and yet it continues happily in the spring, hardened against what summer may throw at it. Hard red winter wheat is what I use for bread. Hearty bread. Soft spring wheat won't do. Grinding it and burying my hands in the warm meal brings a sacred joy. 

I just discovered Bluebird Farms Grain in Winthrop. My first order arrived - Rye, Farro, and Einka/Einkorn. Heirloom, ancient grains organically farmed. These are the innovative, brave farmers. It is a beautiful endeavor. I want to support them. Applaud them. Cheer them on. Curtsy. 

(This picture is NOT from their farm. This is merely dirt, not healthy soil. There was no life in it. There wasn't a farm house to be seen for miles and miles.) 

Culpepper Hill

Compared to cycling to the top Mt. Constitution on Orcas Island in the Puget Sound, or Adventure Cycling over the Cascades on the Northern Tier that starts in Anacortes and follows Highway 20 across to Maine, Culpepper Hill is a mere bump on the repurposed railroad tracks known here in Snohomish County as Centennial Trail.  

The trail is clean and well traveled by walkers, ramblers, roller bladers, roller skaters, strollers, wheelchairs, and equestrians. But it feels the most mileage from cyclists. 

On the Southend, it connects to several arterial trails in King County and beyond. On the North End, it is now creeping four miles past Bryant toward Skagit County. It ends for now at an historic dairy barn in a pastoral setting off Highway 9 North of Arlington. 

When we decide to go for a ride, we heave our bikes into the pickup and drive to one of the the trailheads 

The most I have ridden this summer is eight miles at a time. A few summers ago I made it on a seventeen mile trip. 

This Labor Day I asked Loverby if we could try going the thirty six mile round trip from the 152nd Trailhead in Arlington down to Snohomish. 

He thought accomplishing that before winter comes was a good idea. I could give you the Facebook status version and make it look glamorous, but it ended ugly - and we didn't take #selfies.  

A third of the way back my legs and arms started seizing and cramping. I tried walking it off, rested flat in the grass, and tried to massage them. Nothing helped. Craig stayed close by as I gimped along. Five miles from Culpepper Hill, I begged Craig to go get the truck and put me out of my misery. He urged me to finish what we had set out to do. He said, "Babe, if you can make along the flats to Culpepper Hill, it is all downhill from there. You can do it."

My mouth knotted and contorted in agony. Tears blurred my vision. Ugly groans escaped from the deep as I cried aloud for divine help to make it to the top of Culpepper Hill. If I could make it there, I could coast for five blessed miles to the truck. It wasn't pretty, but I made it. When we got home, I limped into a long, hot bath with generous portions of Epsom salts and took three Aleve. 

When we ride we hide our spandex underneath something. I also wear one of Craig's Carhartt T-shirts to hang over and hide my saddle overflow. The tractor seat shape doesn't fulfill its claims. 

Even though all my weight is distributed evenly upon my wide saddle, it still feels like I'm impaled on an upturned stiletto. 

We don't wear helmets yet. My braid starts unraveling like my courage by the time I'm one third of the way up Culpepper Hill. 

I keep seeing signs along the edge of the trail dedicating this portion of the trail to a member of a local cycling group. The story possibilities distract me as I wobble and waiver up this relentless five mile incline. This is a tough beginning for our thirty six mile round trip. 

They named it Culpepper Hill in honor of him. I start hating this man who probably crossed over to the other side cycling. He left behind all these colorful, tight muscled cyclist friends

whirring effortlessly up Culpepper Hill at great speeds. They politely call out, "On the left," so I won't wobble into them as I make what I think are discrete little zigzags. 

No matter the gender, a tight backside confined in black spandex cutting in front of me feels like a carrot I want to take a bite out of. 

Sometimes it's a perfectly synced pod of bright colors with lots of lovely black spandex hugging varied shapes of delicious derrières. Yes, the receding backsides of cyclists keep me peddling up Culpepper Hill. 

When they pass I pretend for a moment that we are just out of the gates at Belmonte - favored jockeys for the Triple Crown - in splendid colors urging our mounts on. We are neck and neck, but for only an instant. I fall behind by more than a nose. 

I'm on a bicycle ride, wearing no colors. You, you're a cyclist - head to toe decked in colors - splitting the wind.  

I want you to know I want to hang a rose wreath across your handlebars and put an ivy crown on your brow whenever I see you gathered on a ferry or in a park.  

I fantasize about setting up wayside stands to refresh you. I imagine destination dinners to celebrate another section crossed off your worn map. I research places that might need a cyclist hostel. I would give you my last crust of bread and let you have the only available hot water for a shower. I would set the tea kettle on and let you plunder my garden. I would make sure you had fresh sheets and the best pillow to make a bed in the extra room.

I follow your routes by lurking on your blog. I read and wonder about you circumventing the coast of Ireland - is it best clockwise? I ponder how many flats you fix a year. When I hear about hospitality in Costa Rica I yearn. I dream about feasting you on ice cream, bacon, steak, and homemade cinnamon rolls, but find you in the park taking bites out of power bars
and sports drinks. 

I like knowing you're out there pedaling steadily on some side road. I wish you'd stop and rest awhile with me - tell me your stories - because then I'd be able to watch freedom dance across your face and open road possibilities light up your eyes. 

Suck me tandem into your tailwind. Let me fly the last five miles down Culpepper Hill with you. I'll wear your colors. We'll make some other weighted down, panting, struggling soul want to keep our backside in view.