Category: Pondering Quietly

Some deep thoughts in the shallows of my mind, some shallow thoughts . . . somewhere else.

open hands

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Noxious weeds gone.

In 1851, The Whale, the English edition of Moby-Dick, was published, differing from the American edition with thousands of punctuation and spelling changes, and over 700 different wordings.  In 2003, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, the fifth book in the series, was published with 864 of similar differences between the American and British versions.  Has our understanding English improved in the last 150 years?

Joni Mitchelle’s For The Roses this morning.  Comfort music.  Not quite my first Joni but the first album that I bought when it was released.  Prior to Joni, I had been such a musical snob. I appreciated trained voices and songs that were a part of stories.  Musical stories. Oh, there were the Beatles, The Dave Clark 5 (my best friend’s favorite) and other distractions.  They were inconsequential, or so I thought. The American Musical Theater was my ‘real’ music.  And then Joni, thanks to a boyfriend, and also our newest Noble Prize winner.  I’ve been humming Dylan albums straight through all week.   Continue reading →

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milwaukee weekend

img_4772Milwaukee.  The 90-mile-away city that we never visit.  But there we were for the wedding of one of Julia’s long time therapists who, years after she left Madison, we still miss.  A pretty wedding at the Milwaukee Yacht Club on a blue skied sunny fall day.  The chilly air was warmed by a sun enough to make the outdoor ceremony with dock and lake view utterly pleasant to sit through.   Although we knew no one but the bride, Julia was welcomed like a cousin. Ever generous, Michelle has for years shared Julia stories with her family, roommates and fellow marching band members.  And that eased our way into the party.  Julia exchanged news about Sonic and Mario with many willing listeners. And after dinner, Julia wanted to dance and found willing partners. Continue reading →

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capturing focus

When my friend, Cindy, wrote “What’s sparking joy?” on her Blog, Yarnstead, she asked the question:  “So, how to get back to that top ten, how to recapture the focus I came back from Alaska with last year?”

Good question!  So much on my mind.  I wanted to call her for coffee and chat, I expected her to be at Saturday service at FUS but instead, days later, I write.

I know, I know. Yes, yes!  I know.  How?  And not just how to recapture the focus for sparking joy, but also, how to hold focus in the midst of whirling chaos.  How to recall and return to it when the immediate fires are put out?  How not to dissipate that wonderful energy on those immediate fire that inevitably flare up.

Yes, good question. Continue reading →

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fossils

Star fish fossil at the Museo di Storia Naturale in Milan

It rained in the very early morning and now again at dusk.  The day was by turn, cool, sunny, cloudy, hot and muggy.  What of my mood can I blame on the weather?

Julia and I continue to work on our gardens.  We are weeding and cleaning the back beds.  I am making space for some of what must be moved.  I’ve not heard back from the inspector who told me he would call back in regards to an extension of time before imposing a fine to give me time to transplant.  I hesitate calling in case the answer is not what I want to hear.  In the meantime, my across the street neighbor received a complaint similar to mine.  Their terrace garden is considerably smaller and their plants, although over 24” are all perennials whose final height is only in place for a few weeks.  Someone on the neighborhood yahoo group has taken to calling he who is complaining the garden gestapo.  I am almost more angry about this second complaint.  No, not quite true.  I am angry over my complaint as well.  I am still muttering as I garden and doing a fair bit of blaming. Continue reading →

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travel hangover

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Plant fossils at the Museo di Storia Naturale in Milan 

Almost mid-day on day 3 at home.  Julia is still asleep.  I thought she had no jet lag/long day travel effects at all.  She seemed to go to bed at relatively normal times, wake up pretty early and go-go all day.  Not sure what switched but she has finally crashed.

I’ve been crashing for three days!  I wake much too early and want desperately to nap midday and then crave bed by 9.  During the last two days, I’ve gotten out of bed hoping that I could climb back in as soon as possible which is something I haven’t felt for a long time.

And I am grateful that I recognize that the last time I felt that way was for emotional, not physical reasons.  Those physical reasons fade quickly.  Blessedly quickly. Continue reading →

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metaphor

Sitting on the front porch, drinking a giant glass of iced coffee and eating a very sugared scone, both of which I have sworn off and desperately needed this morning.  After inhaling the scone and sucking up half the coffee, I begin to feel humanity seeping back into my bones.  I look down to see the nose of a squirrel about six inches from my foot.  I startle at exactly the same moment as the squirrel—I know this guy, he spends many a morning on my porch.  He moves around me, not quite out of sight. This is his porch as much as mine.  I feel my heart beat quickly after the startle and I imagine I see his racing in his chest.  We are not friends, both wary of the other, but not exactly unfriendly either.  I put my plate of scone crumbs on the floor six feet from my seat, half the distance between us.  He is still; his eyes on me.  I sit back down and he advances to the plate much more quickly that I would have advised had I been his mother.  He eats.  I do not offer him a sip of coffee but wonder if caffeine would have made him a squirrel-ier squirrel this morning.   Continue reading →

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just hard

image It would have been a hard weekend if all had gone well. But all did not go well and I am on the other side of it. My head aches, my stomach is both tight and churning. And although I slept the night hard with a loving dream of an old professor’s praise for a new child, I awoke exhausted. I could have dropped Julia off at school and ducked beneath the covers. I didn’t. I know my blue moods. This one did not creep up. It was a definite possibility from the start. Though I prepared and hoped it would not to come to fruition, the aftermath could not be unexpected. Continue reading →

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recherchez

 

2016 pysanky   

I have not been writing. After a while, the lack of writing catches up with me and I feel a constipation of the spirit. After a while, I have nothing to say. Find it incredibly hard to begin. After a while, I am hollow and all I can reflect on is that I am empty of reflection. It is then, now, that I want to dive into an impossibly big, BIG project. A novel! A three act play! A fantasy trilogy. Something that I can get so lost in that I can forget the huge hole in my heart.   Continue reading →

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shelf life 

Stuff wears out.
There was an old bottle of shampoo, Neutrogena T/Gel Total, that was sitting on a shower shelve for five years. I don’t like it and only use it when there is nothing else in the house. David used it. But I have used it now and again and again, and last week, It was empty. Time to toss the bottle. For just a moment, I was nostalgic. Was this the last household item that belonged to David? Could I throw it away? I could add a few more dramatic questions–in my head, I did–but without drama, I threw it in the bathroom trash can. A few days later, Julia emptied that can into a bag to be put into the trash.
Without drama, but I was aware of it leaving the house. Continue reading →

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Photosynthesis

  On Saturday, Julia and I sat in the sun drenched widowed front of a sausage shop feasting on Chinese-southwestern inspired links and real French fries. None of it our usual fare. Then again, the amount of sun pouring through those windows didn’t feel like usual fare either. So much so that I squinted as I typed and Julia’s glasses turned a very dark gray. But we did not move. I squinted as long as I could little and let every inch of exposed skin drink in the light.   

Perhaps I photosynthesized. Julia did not humor my hypothesis.

February ended in a gentle breeze and I was convinced that spring was around the next corner, not more than a month away. We spied some green shoots in the front garden. Of course, the first of March, it snowed chasing away my belief in early spring.  

I will carefully begin gardening again this spring. A month at a gym and religiously doing my PT exercises is beginning to reap results. There are actually days without pain meds and activity stopping pain. And I can bend down! I have never before taken such joy in retrieving dropped paper. I can even put on my socks without sitting down. Still, I have been grumpy so much of the last few weeks. It has been a long sloshing trek towards wellness. I am not there yet. Still a bit scared to go to a yoga class. What if I re-insure myself? No reason to believe that this will be the case but . . . 

Oh, I hate “buts”! There was a point during the last month when I confronted the notion of not gardening again. Of not returning to yoga class. Of making a much more sedentary life. I took it in and tasted it, like one does with fine chocolate. I understood something new about possibility before I spit it out and headed to the gym.  

I cannot help but be an optimist. Perhaps cockeyed, to be sure.

Posted on by Suzanne Buchko 1