Confabulation

First I thought you had forgotten, then a horrific thought ensued...

The thought that perhaps my history had shifted and it was I that had dropped a page and somehow lost a piece of myself along the journey.

But I let you talk and you believed with such fervor that in that moment it was true and never had the truth been truer.

We could have sailed a ship into the past by your stars.

I smiled and let it go...then I stopped listening.

It's real what they say of firewater...it muddies the brain.

It brings such heat that things begin to melt

Then it involuntarily pours and makes a bog of sand upon which you stand and lose all sense of footing with every drop you drink.

I am grateful for no such need.

It is sadder than the first tear and heavier than the last one you will cry as you watch me depart for something real.

?

What if we aren't Human Beings trying to have a Spiritual experience?

What if we are Spiritual Beings trying to have a human experience?

Namaste

Spring Fest @ the FairGrounds

I wanted to share some pics I took at the annual Spring Fest which takes place every year at the Fairgrounds a few towns over.  The creativity with living things was amazing!  And although the entry price of $12 always makes me gripe, in the end it was well worth it for the smile I walked out with :)  You always get good ideas and inspiration - and that undeniable feeling that Spring is indeed just around the corner!  In my younger years, I dismissed such things as 'hokey' but now these gatherings have become and integral part of who I have become at the core of my being - I highly suggest attending such things if you have the chance!

Wrought Iron - One of my favorite things

This was unreal and piano music was playing, it was all set among fairy gardens of varying height

The little girl in me danced

I wish you could've smelled this DELICIOUS

And Again

Namaste

Vitamin Sea - essential for Life

Last night I ran out to grab a pizza for the kids.  The sky was surreal to say the least - it looked like the ocean above me.  Night was coming on quick and I pulled over and grabbed this pic.  We are Full Moon here and my dreams always quicken; almost as if my subconscious becomes heightened.  I prayed to get to the sea the other day and within 24 hours my phone buzzed with 2 different invites from friends - Cosmic? Yes.  Normal? - My normal which I choose to recognize.  Ask and ye shall receive...the water awaits us all.

Namaste

Rose and the Cemetery

Again class made me dig deep...this is a piece where we were supposed to engage the senses, create sentences that vary in length, begin and end disturbingly.  It's loosely based on where my mother is buried in Glenwood Cemetery.  When she was alive she would always want to read the stones of the childrens graves if we found ourselves in a cemetery.  Once I took her to the Milford cemetery.  She loved the gothic images and grand burial sites with carved angels watching over everything.  Wrought Iron was another thing that she enjoyed - as do I.  She opened my eyes to much, I think she would've approved of this weeks assignment.  Miss you Mom...

I hoped she had found peace.  On her gray granite tombstone was a machine carved rose.  Her name had been Rose.  Just a single carved rose, with a wispy somewhat pathetic stem, made by a mechanical punch card like a factory Christmas card would be; mass produced nothing special, a quintessential image.  She hated the redundancy of the red rose which always served to surprise people, that one would hate that iconic image; a Valentine’s Day visual anthem of such recognizable quality.  She used to say people don’t see what’s right in front of them.  Her favorite flower was a pale purple rose that deepened toward a Catholic Lent-like color near the base.  Just then I caught the scent of fresh death in the wind. I glanced at the children’s graves on the hill next to the gnarled oak tree.  The back plots were ancient, their identities, dates, and grief washed away by decades of rain, harsh wind, and snow.  Now they garishly reminded me of a giant in need of dental work; discolored, chipped, and twisted.  The gash of a fresh plot in the neatly clipped lawn held a bounty of flowers.  The gagging scent tasted of carnations and Lily’s.  Rose hadn’t much care for the fragrant Lily of the Valley that bloomed on the dark side of the lake house in spring, though she did admire their tenacity at pushing through the holes of Mason Bricks that lined a small path to the oil tank.  Their white bobble-head flowers would shake in the wind, wearing far too much cheap perfume like the old broads at the nursing home where she volunteered.  Shaken and pickled.  We should’ve taken the time and chosen a more fitting stone, maybe something more in line with the flower she loved.  We should’ve commissioned the stone artist like I had suggested to chip away the rock for a more natural looking timeless bloom to freeze in the granite.  A clap of thunder in the lush valley stirred me from my thoughts.  The green foliage around me was gathering under the punched wounded sky.  I began to back away.  A jagged bolt of lightning hit the oak over the graves of the children long dead, and I realized that she was, indeed, still angry.

Best Line

Class on Monday night was long and with the time change and working all day before heading to school I was tired but I am always grateful to be learning.  I will always feel like education opens doors, takes walls down and helps us understand the humanity of the world and of ourselves.  My prof was talking about the papers that we need to write and this statement she offered grabbed my attention like no other.  The words she spoke made the entire trip down, the entire day and most likely the entire semester worth it...

"Students in this class have been trained to read very closely.  The words are all you need.  The meaning comes from your own mind, NOT the internet. Do not blindly worship technology. 

 Never let anyone or anything think for you."

Amen to that Sister

The Great Melt of Spring has begun...

Come on Eileen- Part 1

Soon it will be warmer, and the mist will return.  And it has me thinking about the people that drift in and out of your life.  They are mist souls, and what do they teach us?  Some are good, many are flawed, but all are alive and moving about.  I suppose it’s a Celtic thing to think in these terms, for mist has always held a certain reverence with my kind...

Eileen was a creative soul that I met quite by chance years ago.  My very good friend Cheryl is a creative floral designer.  Her work astounds me, especially her arrangements that center on the sea.  Cheryl has worked everywhere with her talent and ended up doing freelance one summer for a woman 3 towns over named Eileen.  I had just started working at the hospital which consisted of one 12 hour day a week in an effort to obtain medical benefits.  The rest of the time I worked for a temp agency in various places.  I was between work gigs and Cheryl asked me if I would be interested in cash (yes) a laid back work environment (yes) mostly outside (um yes). 

So I traveled a road past an old abandoned looking airstrip, complete with swamp grass poking through the runway. They flew out small planes that looked as though they were made for a grade school history project out of painted red and blue tin cans with bicycle like bases.  They looked so fake; I actually pulled over to get a better view.  Then right over my car a tin can beauty with a lawn mower sounding engine whizzed by.  I didn’t  know it at the time but the area I found myself in held one of the highest concentration of retired airline & jet pilots – they are a salty crew if you come across them – and they are quintessentially free by their own right.

I eased back on the road with a personal promise to return one day with a bagged lunch and just watch.  I still haven’t done that but spring is on the way.  I continued on a winding road that seemed haphazard with small but stately homes tucked away.  These were the stick built homes from about a generation ago that required a plan and a skilled craftsman to build.  The owners were people that understood the value of a buck saved and currently smile at the idiocy of the uninspired Mc-mansion.  To my left was a small home with an open garage that had been turned into a floral studio, this was Eileen’s haunt.

There were 4 women around a makeshift HUGE center island, stripping leaves off stems and creating the most beautiful arrangements.  The master of ceremonies was Eileen, a tiny attractive Italian looking woman with boundless energy.  I’m always astounded by the energy of the creative.  It’s love and art and hope all in one.  They somehow understand the beauty and direction of the human soul is their divine responsibility.  Introductions were made during this estrogen festival and I was given my orders, somewhat breathlessly, by Eileen for the day.  

“The truck will be here soon with the order, open the boxes, slice the stems and put them immediately into those 5 gallon buckets with water.  Fill them up now so they are ready there is a hose around the side of the house and put the filled ones in the shade.” Easy.  I went around the side of the house to find the hose.  I was happy with exiting from the group because, although Cheryl was there, I was in fact the newcomer. 

As I rounded the corner there was a roughly staked 3 foot fence made from sticks and chicken wire  that extended from the house about 10 feet.  Picture yourself with both arms trying to hug hundreds of stems that you have just picked and that was this garden.  Broccoli lazily ripened , a million tomatoes of various sorts hung like ornaments on green so dark you’d think it had been painted.  There were lettuces, cabbages, the frondy delicate clues of carrots swaying, and peppers dewy and fleshy – I touched them and they were cool in the shade of the early part of the day.  And the smell of moist soil ready to receive and extravagantly give…In that moment I fell in love with Eileen.

I had a strange moment as I was filling the buckets.  A centered moment for sure.  I will try as best I can to describe it to you…

I held a green garden hose in my hand and began pouring the water into the buckets.  They needed to be halfway filled and there were many.  The sun had shifted and it was getting warmer.  I looked down at myself.  I had gotten in pretty good shape from not working constantly yet (the workaholic mania was still a couple of years away)  I had been hiking and doing yoga and passively lifting weights. 

I wore a black tee shirt that hugged me and left my arms bare.  My arms looked strong in the sun, freckled but soaking up that eternal life giving light.  I had a faded pair of Gap jeans on…boot cut.   I don’t even know if they sell these anymore.  And my brown-well worn-soft as hell cowboy boots.  My hair was long and tendrilly-curly and has always been that coppery red.  I had a clip holding part of it up, but tendrils escaped and I blew them back. Eileen’s dog Calhoun watched me from the shade.  He was a Burmese mountain dog and a mountain of an animal, yet he was as sweet as a newborn puppy.  I think he knew where I was at.

I watched the water run from the hose.  It was well water, cold, from deep in the ground.  The sun came through the hazy high tree leaves and fell in dappled patterns all over me.  The sun kissed the well water and it sparkled; two forces required for our existence meeting right in front of me. I remember exhaling, slowly and just being so in that moment…just watching that ground water splintering in the sun…being comfortable in my body…being strong.  There haven’t been many times in my life that I felt beautiful – I was taught not to.  But that day, that moment, I was, and there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that I was.  It was just a moment…but it has never left me.  It remained private until now.

A beat up truck from the city showed up and unloaded boxes and boxes and boxes, then zoomed away in a cloud of toxic exhaust.  I had been given a knife to cut the plastic ties and as I did the boxes exhaled and expanded somewhat.  I was to cut the ties, leave the boxes closed, then open them one by one chop the stems and plunge them into the buckets under the tree.  It took a few hours.  

When I finished, I stood under the tree in a makeshift bucketed garden with the most gorgeous flowers you have ever seen.  I could’ve cried at the beauty (I think I did a little bit). There was one small white flower that grew in bunches – I think they called it ‘stock’?  It was the most deliciously fragrant thing I have ever smelled.  I felt like an Earthy Queen in a Monarchy of dirt and life that had sweated for this moment of grace, this moment of beauty.  I picked up the hose and took a long drink of well water. 

Some days will never leave you, and you will never leave some days.

Namaste

Naked Yoga and Pickup Trucks

Naked Yoga and Pickup Trucks

I don’t even know where to begin; so much is swirling around me.  I ended a 3 week stint of being very ill with God-knows-what.  Remember I work in an infectious disease office which has me constantly checking if my headache is some Ebola-Viral Strain brought in.  Or perhaps hordes of germs and nasty’s that banded together in an air duct and decided to start a new cult that landed in my ear canal.  Trouble breathing, intermittent fevers, chills, waves of nausea, aches, a thirst that caused my living room to look like a recycling factory, and a disorientation that I can only describe as a 72 hour acid trip.

Somewhere in all of this my oldest son turned 17.  His father had graciously offered him the use of a sedan.  Awesome yes.  Then I had found a cerulean blue green Ford Ranger Pickup truck locally for sale.  Long story short, we went to look at it, we haggled, and we bought it.  It sat at my dad’s for a bit until my little angel took his driving test and his father graciously picked up the insurance.

 

To tell you what it felt like as a single mother who had gone through being totally broke-ass in the last few years to being able to buy my son a vehicle with an engine that actually ran…well…there are no words.  NONE.

The look on his face when we shook hands and he knew it was real was one of sheer gratitude.  And the hug he gave me full on and true mirrored that gratitude in my own being.  It was a privilege, just as it is a privilege to be his mother.  He is a cosmic child, a Pisces.  The truck may be something of a work in progress – there are things that need to be fixed, maintained and taken care of.  He gets it.  And honestly having divorced a wealthy life, a materialistic existence to dance with fear, financial insecurity, and a sometimes the always exhausting search for self, truth, justice yada yada – that was all I ever truly wanted.  The boys to get it.  The intangible IT.  To know that the Self is the true North on the compass of this journey.  And they get it.  The realization of that box being checked off in my brain made every tear, every heart palpitation, every doubt at 3AM in the last 10 yrs of single mom land worth it.

I’ve often looked at my life like some big celestial book.  Hard to ground, always being rewritten, rethought, rehashed, and broken through.  There are chapters, pages, sections, acknowledgements, indexes, flashbacks, notations, metaphors, suspension of disbelief, quotes, and the list goes on and on.  But I woke up the day after my son’s birthday and realized with quite a shock that a chapter ended without my knowing it.  After driving them to school for a large majority of the time (anytime I could when I wasn’t up at the crack of dawn flying to work)  I was no longer needed.  (Read STAB IN THE HEART, PUNCH IN THE GUT) 

Though this is completely normal, so I am told, well folks …I just wasn’t ready.  It was a pink slip from the HR dept. in SINGLE MOM INC. that I didn’t see coming.  And I felt foolish.  And I felt strange.  My child was up early, heating up his truck to drive he and his brother (built in co-pilot) to school.  I managed a fake strong smile and heard them close the door, get in the truck, and drive away.  Maybe it was a spoke in my menstrual cycle, a blip in the moon, daylight savings come early, ebola-H1N1 viral diarrhea ebbing away but I was breathless and bummed. 

But this is what I have spent the last 17 years trying to accomplish in raising them…for them to use their wings…or in this case a pickup truck.  It was swift. It was fast.  And then I smiled a real smile and understood once more the concept of Bittersweet.  It’s sweet and it sucks.

I looked around this house that suddenly felt way too big and eerily quiet and realized my role will always be Mom, but there there is a spin off in the making called Crisy.  My body held me, my mind set me free, and a hope was once again born.  Ok so the role is morphing a bit…The mama bear pushes the cubs from the den a bit to get them ready for life.  But those cubs, the children of single moms, teach those moms so much about themselves.  I think subconsciously I had been preparing for quite some time...but still when that next page of the chapter was blank I wanted to throw the book against the wall. 

I vowed to be good to myself, to redirect some of the energy that I’d been using on making sure teeth were brushed, shoes were tied, bagged lunches were ready back to myself. The boys have mastered the art of self-care, and they can cook, and by the way do laundry.  It seemed selfish to redirect this energy, but it also seemed correct….

I stripped off my clothes to shower and while the water was running to heat up, I walked into my closet to grab the outfit for the day.  And there, like an old friend, was my yoga mat; which oddly enough is the same color as the pickup truck I bought my son.  Funny those little things when they hit you…those little clues that are so easily missed. 

I ran my hand across it and picked it up.  I shut the water off and spread the yoga mat on my bedroom floor.  I was stripped down on a few levels; I had been sick and weak for a while, I was completely naked and alone, I was emotionally delicate and deeply reflective.  All in all I was ready to receive Peace.  I did a deep relaxation and an AM yoga series by Rodney Yee.  I became aware at the state of my body-mind, I breathed and stretched and arched.  It was both subtle and spritual.

At the end of the series you sit in seated meditation (I always do this with my hands in a traditional prayer position.)  I began gently rocking and praying and thanking.  I sat like that for a long time.  Then I was ready to stand up.  I lit the candles in my bathroom and showered in their flickering light.  I was ready to face the end of that chapter – and maybe the beginning of a new one.  

I’m always gonna be Mom, I’m also going to be Me.  Page turned.

Namaste

Class...

I believe the best classroom would be a womb like space. And we will sit, our souls pregnant with Celestial Fire like that which Thomas Gray spoke of...  A ton of candles burning bright and adding shadows to the edges of reason.  An image, a flickering life.  I want the grain of it all to absorb me.  I want a stone fireplace, a background melody of crackling and popping to the lesson that is timeless, where we discover the work and ultimately ourselves.  I don't want water bottles or gatorade...I want thick blown Glass & Pewter mugs filled with Mead and Wine and they will flash like treasure, like jewels that we consume as we expand ourselves with thoughts of days beyond this existence..Oh Blessed Learning, this is class as it should be.

I long to do our language, our words justice.  They deserve so much more than fake light, perfect plastic counters and bad industrial carpet...so much more.  Maybe one day I can teach like this...and then be outlawed...but recalled as one who was helplessly in love with words.

Seeds of Hope

Today brings me personal studies and meditations in Tiny Living, Sustainable Practices, Sewing (mending), and a nod to the sun that must come...Not a Victory Garden but rather a Hope Garden... 

-Hope that my children will make good choices in life.  

-Hope that my own future will hold what I need to be 'me'.  

-Hope that I will glide across the local lakes and rivers of spring in a kayak with the soft whisper of water below me.

-Hope that I will be eating better, locally, nutritionally so my body can catch up with my mind

-Hope for good health and happiness for those who surround me

-Hope for gratitude (even when I am folding laundry and unclogging toilets)

-Hope for humility

-Hope for compassion

-Hope that I can continue with school

-Hope that I can make the shifts I need to be where I want to be both within and without my being.

-Hope that I will cherish every moment I work soil to food because it is a privilege 

-Hope that I will love and be loved

-Hope that I'm not to late to the party of my life

-Hope that I have arrived at that party just in time, because everything is as it should be in any given moment

-Hope that I will love and be loved

-Hope that I will make a difference

-Hope that small actions let me live my truth openly and unencumbered

I put this all in the soil today....with water....with sun....and Hope

My Hope Garden

Franklins Beauty

I had driven this road for at least 10 years when my children attended Immaculate Conception School in Franklin.  Today I went food shopping and took a shortcut back.  It took me past the Franklin Pond/spillway-waterfall where the Wallkill River winds through.  Franklin has always held a place in my heart since I had taken dance lessons there many moons ago as a young girl.  It was an old building called the Neighborhood House which serviced the town.  It had these amazing wood floors and big cavern-like ballroom rooms.  The Catholic School children would be letting out of school and walking home when I went to dance class.  I remember wishing I was one of them in a crispy uniform, with my education important.

Years later there wasn't a question as to where I was going to send my children to school.  I enrolled them in preschool and they stayed until 8th grade (my youngest until 7th when they moved his last year to the Catholic Highschool in Sparta).  I caught a bit of flack for paying for their education, I still say Pre-K-8th was the best money I ever spent on them.  They chose later to go to public High School, and I couldn't be happier for them in their decision.  

When I sold real estate when my kids were small, Franklin was my favorite town.  It held the charm of yesteryear in its worn hands. Town Water, town sewer, buildings and a town layout that made sense.  I must have driven this road a million times, but today in the late morning light,  I saw the Wallkill River with fresh eyes and stopped to grab a pic.  I love being surprised like that...gently...completely.  Ah Franklin, may I never tire of your charms...