Winter is coming

I am going into a new job. I’ll be running a group home for developmentally disabled people. I’m excited, making plans and looking forward tp helping people live their life in a meaningful way. I can make art and teach residents. There should be time for writing. I can go through the winter without worrying-for the first time-if I’m going to have enough heat to last. I won’t be driving my car so I won’t have to worry about driving on slick, icy roads to get to work.

The downside is I won’t be home every night with my beloved pets. I’ll adjust, and so will they.  Learning to adjust to whatever reality you find yourself in is important. We don’t control anyone, or anything, except our own behavior, so sometimes our circumstances are less than ideal. Stressing and bitching about things you can’t control is pointless. You only guarantee your own unhappiness. I’ll get one day a week off and plan to spend it at home, cuddled with my cats, reading or something equally meditative.

Today I’m going to help out at Common Ground, the shop I hope to partner in once I retire (3 short years away!) I’ll come home tonight and write. And cuddle with Max and Annie. I’ve got until the 29th; I leave the morning of the 30th to take my new job. I’m basically “filling up” on my little home, my cat family, my solitude and quiet time. I’d hoped I would get a visitor or two before I left, but this is a terrible time to ask people to add to overflowing Holiday commitments.

I’ll be posting more often-no excuses now!- so maybe some of you can offer suggestions on the subjects I’ve posted concerning blog layout, making the blog my art and writing website and dropping the art website, etc. Hope to hear from you! In the meantime, enjoy your own holiday commitments.

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2011

2011. Sounds like science fiction. I remember when “In The Year 2929” was in the Top 10 and it sounded so cheesy. We aren’t literally connected to our computers yet, we still have the use of our legs…but now the damn song doesn’t sound nearly so cheesy.

Every year we think back on the past 12 months and wonder where they went, what did we accomplish and usually feel like we wasted so much time. I used to do that, used to mark my years with flags of one failure after another. I used to say “This year will be different! This year I’m going to succeed.”

This year I look back at the last 12 months and still wonder how they flew by so quickly. I still remember one failure after another. I also look at my work and feel some measure of progress. Success is something I define differently than I did in other years. Now success is someone complimenting my work, someone buying it. Success is having a long conversation with a friend in pain, encouraging a family member when they are frustrated and frightened. Success is going to sleep knowing my rent is paid, my vehicle is running and I have a job to get up for.

Success is understanding life is lived one day at a time. Success is knowing in my heart I’m doing the best I can.

Long, long thoughts

William Wordsworth ended one of his most famous poems with the phrase “…and the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts”

I remember wondering about the meaning of life and what the years ahead held for me. I pondered deep subjects when I was 16, 20, 25. Mainly I wondered if HE would ever love me, if anyone would notice that my clothes were old and poorly fitted, if anyone would remember me, if I would be invited, accepted. Those aren’t such “long, long thoughts.” Maybe Wordsworth wasn’t referring to teenagers and early 20’s Youth. Maybe, by youth he meant people who still had 50 years to live and that when we get about halfway we start wondering what the hell we’re doing here-who we are  in general. I don’t mean religion. That’s a club set up to make sure no one has to question too deeply, that no question goes unanswered, nothing remains unexplained-even if the only explanation requires “blind faith.”

The pieces that follow are bits that came up in some of my “long, long thoughts” but I think they apply to everyone sooner or later. Comments welcome.

The Woman I Could Have Become

That could have been me. That woman there, walking by dressed in Ann Taylor. Her smile is warm and shows off perfect white teeth. She’s reaching up just slightly, her firm tan arms reach for the shoulders of a tall well-made man. He’s smiling down at her. His teeth are white and perfect too. Look, they’re walking slowly now, his arm at her back, Now, his hand is moves lightly to rest on her trim hips. Their heads are leaning toward each other as they walk in perfect time. Look now, they’ve arrived at a car, something red and new. He’s holding the door for her. Such a gentleman, he is. She’s turning her face to him flashing that perfect, white smile! How lightly he steps after he closes the door. So happy, satisfied. She looks so happy, satisfied. They’re driving away, smiling, happy and satisfied.

I could have been that woman; who’s to say I couldn’t?

Early Morning Hike

Clear notes of a Cardinal slice through the air.

Rustling fallen leaves mark the path of a black snake.

Painted lady shivers on a daisy petal.

My shoes beat rhythmically against gravel and sand.

 

GETTING OLD

Aging should be a good thing. I might as well think of it that way since I can’t stop it. Even if I had the money for cosmetic surgery, I could only make it a little nicer, take away some of the tracks of pain. How could I cut away the roots of it? Wouldn’t the bloom of it still show in my face, given time? Better to step out of my own cage, focus on the outside – other people, children, animals, making and creating. This incessant introspection has left me exasperated and tired. Tired of myself and my ceaseless need.

PREY

Unbidden memories slice my senses – a lion on unwary antelope

ripping away the fragile flesh of years exposing the still pulsing heart.

Bleeding, draining into the everlasting earth.

Questions

How did I love you? With my heart, my mind, my body. Not until you left did I love you with my past, my present, my future.

Why did I love you? Because you asked me to; oh you did. With your eyes, your smile, your arms. Only after you left did the question become the answer.

Sighting

I saw you in Belk’s- I knew it was you before I sighted the familiar beard. Your salty clean scent pressed against my senses in Kitchenware . Whirling around my arm shot out to steady a display of crockery shaped like cabbages. My eyes locked onto your familiar gait -broad shoulders above the shoppers between us. When you turned your head to follow a pretty teenager  I saw your profile for the first time clearly, at a distance. I watched you watching her, following her until she was out of sight. You bumped into an older woman and never even apologized.