Winter Treat



Saturday morning and a balmy 24 degrees. The driveway is a sheet of ice and it feels like spring will never come. Well, I did have a moment of hope leaving work the other night with the last vestiges of sunset over the parking lot. It is no longer pitch black at 5:30 pm. Today I am taking the girl and her best buddy Kendall to the movies to see Inkheart, which is little Missy's favorite book. Reviews for movie are abysmal however. Sigh. Perhaps watching Brendan Fraser, who I think is very cute, will make movie bearable.

Went to high school registration with the boy this week. Was feeling very sentimental about my baby growing up until yesterday morning when he told me to shut up. Boy punished for weekend, no computer for him. Dreaming of when he is all grown up now.

I am going to call LC this morning as I miss him and he is not calling me or Jr. and we are getting ready to go up to Kingston and kidnap him for bad movie night. LC, this blog needs you! And FP too.

It can’t be summer,—that got through;
It ’s early yet for spring;
There ’s that long town of white to cross
Before the blackbirds sing.

It can’t be dying,—it ’s too rouge,—
The dead shall go in white.
So sunset shuts my question down
With clasps of chrysolite.

Emily Dickinson

Money Comes and Money Goes



Got another raise at Binder, albeit a small one. And found out the child support money is going back down to next to nothing as all of BFI's back debt is paid off. Have applied for new court date to recalculate based on BFI's salary which is now substantially more than when he was a deli boy. More family court, how I'm looking forward to that. Took the boy to the dentist and apparently braces are in his future. That would fall into the money goes category, with 13 year old boy fury piled on top. The child won't wear his hat for fear of hat hair. And Kate's glasses have disappeared, linked I think to that fact that her brother has been calling her spectacled bear.

How bout that President Obama? I LOVE him! I am genuinely worried that some homicidal right-to-lifer is going to target him though...Stay safe Mr. President!

Listening to Graceland, Under African Skies...."This is the story of how we begin to remember..."

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Mary Oliver

Happy Inauguration Day!


I Hear America Singing

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,

Those of mechanics, each one singing his, as it should be, blithe and strong,

The carpenter singing his, as he measures his plank or beam,

The mason singing his, as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work,

The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat, the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck,

The shoemaker singing as he sits on his bench, the hatter singing as he stands,

The woodcutter's song, the ploughboy's on his way in the morning, or at the noon intermission, or at sundown,

The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing,

Each singing what belongs to her, and to none else,

The day what belongs to the day—at night, the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,

Singing, with open mouths, their strong melodious songs.


Walt Whitman

The Moment


The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

Margaret Atwood

Back Again


I have been away from this blog for too long, I need to write and I have been refusing to allow myself, some kind of weird self-denial. I have joined my friend Stefanie's writing workshop, writingyoga.blogspot.com, and it is helping. Listening to Sarah McLachlan right now and will go for a walk in the snow in a little while. One of today's exercises from the workshop was to write down your goals and bury them. I buried mine with a sprig of evergreen, and used a spoon to dig dirt outside the cat door to make a hole...the ground is hard with ice and covered in snow, but the area outside the cat door is protected by the overhang and porch and so diggable! I'm sure the powers that be were laughing at me, one pajamed arm out the cat door, digging with a teaspoon for spiritual development.

I am going to read some poetry now (some Haiku, some Jane Kenyon, not sure what else), and eat some yogurt. America, turn off your TV, and read a poem!

The crow has flown away:
swaying in the evening sun,
a leafless tree.

Natsume Soseki


The first soft snow!
Enough to bend the leaves
Of the jonquil low.

Basho


The moon over the roof,
worms in the garden.
I rent this house.

Allen Ginsberg

For FP

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RDvmlXeylo

For Miriam

There’s a certain Slant of light,
Winter Afternoons —
That oppresses, like the Heft
Of Cathedral Tunes —

Heavenly Hurt, it gives us —
We can find no scar,
But internal difference,
Where the Meanings, are —

None may teach it — Any —
’Tis the Seal Despair —
An imperial affliction
Sent us of the Air —

When it comes, the Landscape listens —
Shadows — hold their breath —
When it goes, ’tis like the Distance
On the look of Death —

Emily Dickinson