Blue



Greetings from Ghost Sister

Happy Halloween!

It's all smooth sailing from here

Grow old with me!  The best is yet to be.  ~Robert Browning

Our Tosh turns twenty-one! I remember thinking, when he was born, about how cool it would be to be such a young mom - when he turns eighteen I will only be thirty-six! The years since then have been swift and cloudless, the way I think of my own childhood. It always seemed if I couldn't recall any difficulty or stress or hairy moments, then it must have been a damn good time. 

I wonder what Tosh thinks when looking back at his childhood. Was it as good as I remember it for him? Does he remember laughing? Does he remember making tiny bike ramps and struggling to drop in? Does he remember hikes and snuggling on the couch?

In many ways I grew up with Tosh. Being his mom gave me the opportunity to be a grown up shall we say, at an accelerated pace. In that way my mind plays tricks sometimes, when I can't separate moments of my youth from his. But that is okay, because it reminds me that he has been part of me the longest, and I have always been grateful to know and love this sweet, loving, happy boy who is still the same, only now a man. Happy Birthday Tosh!

The Sound of Flight, and Determination

As I expected the advent of fall relegates my summer running to the top shelf in a dusty hallway closet, if I had one. It has been beautiful out the last few days so my efforts to replace running with hiking have become more possible. I took a few hours of comp time to go to the woods and found these tiny mushrooms. They were on the top and sides of a big log that had fallen across the trail, persevering along their tiny way. The caps may have been about as big as a fingernail. What did they have to overcome to come to be?
I think about their smallness, the wet conditions, a fallen log. As if being small alone makes it more difficult to exist. But then, if the conditions were right, then the coming-to-be of some tiny mushrooms must have been effortless.
I think there is a lesson for me here but I am not sure what it is - could it be that if I lay the groundwork in my life correctly, the goal can be reached without struggle? Do the challenges make the goal more worthwhile? Or, don't forget to carry an umbrella?
I just don't know what the lesson is but I was filled with delight at having noticed. This hike gave me another sparkling moment, when I heard a bird above me. I heard it flying, with each flap of its wings a separate whoosh. I don't know about you, but I've never heard that before.

I feel like this today. I would like to celebrate but wish my arms were longer. I have a wide smile but it looks a bit plastic in the blur and whirl of this busy life. My eyes are glazed with the confusion of impending change. My inherent nature will always look for the sun, which remains where it has always been - constant, gentle, certain.

This work is just amazing.

Dalton Ghetti

Find more here: http://www.area4.at/blog/kleinste-schnitzereien/

Yes, I'm sure today is the day.

Happy Birthday to Anyone who may have been born Today!

Today is the Day, or The Time is Now

       i thank You God for most this amazing

day:for the leaping greenly spirits of trees

and a blue true dream of sky;and for everything

which is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth

day of life and love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any--lifted from the no

of all nothing--human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and
now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

- e.e. cummings

What do you remember about being six?

Child To Turn Seven! More News to Come!

The Nimble-Fairy's Tale

She traveled to the pool of wishes

She held hers in her hand

And let go. Hers was the brightest wish

To one day work in "the White House"?

She was full of indecision.

Called her people, but did not get the answers she was looking for.

Not even one.

She looked within.

"I know the truth lies inside me."

She enacted a ritual dance before a Georgia O'Keefe just in case.

Ah.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We are born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson

Happy Birthday P!

Oh we do love our birthdays, don't we?

Woods Trip, Long Pine Reservoir

I know where you live, and I will be coming to get you when it is convenient for me

Girl Waiting for Fireworks, July 4, 2010

The Dark Beauty of the Silhouette

Form, lines, dark in light,
A simpler view of these things,
Made clear and lucid.

P: Where's mom?

L: She's in the hallway.

(Open door, confirm that mom is not in the hallway)

P: No, she's not.

L: I (th)tand corrected.

First 5K

It really was a perfect day to take on my first 5K. Overcast, fairly cool, with a veil of optimism in the air! My friend and I were nervous together but had enough time to become accustomed to being there. We considered how an hour can last a really long time if given the right circumstances. I was impressed with the friendly nature of the running community, which I did not expect. I appreciated that the already-finished were generous enough to hand out encouragement to those still slogging it out...I'm sure it made them feel good too (Uh, I have been done for so long that I am trying to keep myself entertained by cheering for the turtles...)

My motto for the event was "Having Fun," and the running part was reeeeasonably fun. My running partner, if you could call it that, for the second half of the race was a giant, tall man in head to toe black, running pants, and sandals. He was a walker/runner, but was fastidious in making sure that the very second I caught up to him, he would hang up his walking hat and put on his running stride. The maddening part for me was that it only took him several strides of those long legs to be about twenty feet ahead of me, when he could walk again. I thought to myself, well, I guess I'm ok with being someone's motivation to run? And then I looked at the flowers as I passed them by.

But, the most fun part was the last ten seconds of the race. I followed the lead of everyone ahead of me who turned on their juice in the last block of the race, not wanting to let the onlookers down with at least an energetic-seeming finish. But I reeeally turned on my juice when I see my sweet cheering husband, running parallel to me and trying to get to the finish ahead of me to get the good photo op. I couldn't let an onlooker beat me in this race!

American Robin, Turdus Migratorius. Before you make your mental joke, it means thrush. Thrush on the move.

Rain on a tin roof all night.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,
and though they are with you, and yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward, nor tarries with yesterday.

Kahlil Gibran

This Is It

A parent of one of my clients passed away about a week ago. The family was sadly unprepared for any significant kind of recognition of a life gone by. It's not particularly important to me to have a big fancy celebration of my own passing, especially because I won't be able to attend. But, what is a life worth? I would like to request a service among the trees, a bonfire, some nice words from people I have loved. I would like there to be beer because it will help everyone relax, be sad together, and maybe sing a John Denver song about country roads and West Virginia. I would like someone to say that I was a good mom to my kids and a good wife even though I made lots of piles. I would like there to be beauty present in the midst of sorrow and for everyone to be grateful for being alive.

We

I haven't really dated that much

Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually.

- Eileen Caddy

Second Street Birds, Digital Collage

I am grateful for all this snow. Winter is tough enough with all its cold and dreariness, but a big load of snow has always had the capacity to just plain-old make me feel better. The fallow fields that surround our home have surrendered their muddy brown coats in favor of a bright drapery of light. Our persistent gray sky has met its match, for now at least. The silhouettes of trees that perennially catch my eye are made that much more lovely, and clear.

On a morning when the sun breaks through, at first all I can see is the expanse of snow. There is largeness and weight to contend with, but that is not what I came here for.


The last few days I have begun to notice the birds more. The small ones for the most part, like our pair of cardinals, but there is also the arc of a red-tailed hawk as he makes his rounds. I never see him but understand that he is saying, pay attention.

This is what there is.

Every morning, I've got a new chance.

All over the map

age - n., v., aged, aging, or ageing. 1. the length of time during which a being or thing has existed; length of life or existence to the time spoken of or referred to. 2. the lifetime of an individual, or of the individuals of a class or species on an average. 3. a period of human life usually marked by a certain stage of physical or mental development, esp. a degree of development, measured by years from birth, which involved legal responsibility and capacity. 4. the particular period of life at which one becomes naturally or conventionally qualified or disqualified for anything.

A client told me this morning that there are only sixty days until spring. I love to say, when anyone complains about winter, "yes, but we're closer than we've ever been to spring, this year..." Every other year I have believed this myself as I've said it, but this year it is falling flat with insincerity. P. reminded me not to get too down on things because it all looks bleak right now - stuck in the drafty house with furniture that is mocking me, the ice floe in the basement, and L. freaking out on a daily basis because her socks "just feel weely weird." Aah.

Closing in on the end of my third decade has been wearing me thin lately. I'm ok with letting go of the person I was twenty years ago, because there were aspects of myself back then that I am happy to say I have improved upon. I guess it is more mystifying to me how to define what it is that I want to be in my next twenty years. What if I can't figure it out?