Category Archives: Blogs

Comfort and Conundrum (1)

Posted on by
4

I am determined to stay current with my blog this year, so I will post today no matter what. Even if what I post is terrible. Natalie Goldberg does tell us we need to be willing to write the worst crap in the United States, yes? Or in the universe. Though I don’t believe she means we need to be willing to publish the worst crap in the world. Only that we need to not be afraid to write badly. We need to not be afraid of our thoughts, afraid of ourselves. We need to be willing to put everything down on the page—no holds barred. Still, after the act of writing we get to choose. Do I really want Uncle Horace to know this about me? What about the people I work with? Do I really want to publish this even though it seems clunky and unpolished? Am I really willing to be that honest, show that much of myself to the world? It is a choice we face again and again, like deciding not to light that cigarette, not to cheat on our husbands. But unlike failing at quitting smoking, unlike making that decision to light up, choosing to edit out parts of our story doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Right? Each time we send something we’ve written out into the world, we decide how much we want to risk, how vulnerable we want to make ourselves. We get to keep ourselves safe. And I think that’s a good thing. (I can hear the clamor of this controversy even as I write.) Is it without its own dangers? No. We might end up not being willing to take risks in our writing. We might keep ourselves too safe. But knowing it is our choice what to reveal, when to reveal it—that’s a comfort to me (if also a conundrum). Thank you, writing gods. Thank you for that. And here’s to being willing to risk. Here’s to trusting we can still be safe.

Forgive this Flurry? (48)

Posted on by
2

I am inclined to ask for your forgiveness in advance for this flurry of posts as I work toward 56 posts while I’m still 56. I have a handful of days left, and two handfuls of posts remaining. But even as I want to apologize for flooding your email with new posts, a different voice tells me its okay. I think maybe even if you don’t have time to read them, you won’t mind seeing them in your inbox. Does that mean I don’t need to assure you that once I’m 57 things will slow down again? But I do want to keep them coming, one each week, five weeks with two posts. Every year I wonder how long I might keep this up. If I am still doing this when I’m 88, then 36 weeks of the year will need to have two posts. When I started I was 52, so it was the perfect fit. I don’t aspire to being 104 and still blogging, but you never know. I let go of this blog so completely last summer, I wasn’t sure I’d ever reach 56 posts. But I didn’t like giving up on it, so here I am. Tonight I am sick but still typing. I am debating what to name next year’s blog. I’m pretty sure the 57 will rhyme with heaven. What photo will I choose? A shot of clouds on our mountains might work, but I don’t have a good one. I have to make that always wrenching decision, too, about whether or not to pick a theme this year or leave things open again. But tonight I just need to finish this one post and trust the rest will unfold as it may. And tonight, too, I feel glad for you, my readers, and for knowing you will not only forgive me for this flurry of posts—you may even embrace them. So, thank you for that. I can’t tell you how good it feels to think that may be true.

Wild Things (24)

Posted on by
Reply

My kitchen sink is angled in a corner, so when I stand before it to do my healing “toning” with the CD, the voices come to me from behind, engulf me, and my own meets them in the space between me and the corner, echoing, blending. Today I am toning my weakest note, the C, my birth note. I run the scrubbie inside a dirty glass and hit the note. “Jah,” I hold for eight counts, then “pah,” for eight counts more. I still run out of breath. My voice cracks and wavers, wobbly as I work to heal. But already I can feel the difference. Ideas for my blog flit through my head as I stand there, a series, maybe, about my health things, my German healers. The toning vibrates me. The dishes pile up clean and soapy in the left side of the sink. I think again about the power of belief, and just then the birds outside the window at my back bolt in a sudden racket of wings. I look over my shoulder, and the hawk swoops past and lands on the fence. I stand still, my fingers full of soapsuds, so I won’t startle him away. He moves to the other fence, and I turn around and bend my knees to see him through the window. When he flies off, I wish him well, send up a prayer. “May he have a full belly,” I whisper, “a little more often than he needs.” May he have a mate, offspring, a happy life. May he not go hungry. And then I cry, squatting on the kitchen floor, taken by that odd mix of gratitude and grief and love, aching for the small, beautiful, wild things of our world.

Your Patience with Me

Posted on by
4

Hi everyone. I just wanted to thank you for your patience with me. I can’t believe I fell so far behind again so early in this new year of blogging! I am hoping to get caught up soon, so I will thank you in advance for your patience as I (hopefully!) pepper you with posts. ;-)

Seven More to Go (49)

Posted on by
2

This is my 49th post since I turned 55. Before I become 56, I have seven more to go. After falling so incredibly behind in my tumultuous year, I didn’t know if I’d be able to catch up. But now I can believe I’ll reach my goal. Forty-nine and seven, all those magical seven numbers. And I’ll become eight sevens soon. I’ve been trying to decide whether or not I want to have a theme for my 56 posts while I’m 56, or if I want to leave it wide open again for a second year in a row. So far I’ve alternated each year, chafing when I “narrow” things to a theme, floundering when I have no theme at all, no scaffolding. I know one year I want to build my year of posts from sleeping dreams, but I’m not sure I’m ready for that yet. I consider returning to my first blog, to nudging myself again to have new experiences and report on them here. Or I could write about the topic that’s grabbing me now, El Camino de Santiago de Compostela. Or pilgrimages as a whole. Or walking and noticing, being present and connected to the world. (These last three are all of a piece in my mind these days.) So I could write this coming year about the walks I take, or the walks I research or the walks I read about. Or maybe I can allow myself to let this next year be one juicy messy mish mash, be all of the above, even flash fiction added to the mix. And mix rhymes with 56, so maybe there’s a fun title alive in there somewhere waiting to emerge. I’m tossing it around now as I write this, cooked dinner in a bowl. No choices made yet, no drizzling of olive oil or sprinkling of cayenne. No nutritional yeast, no curry. Only the bright green of the bell pepper, dark brown of the mushroom, the tofu stark in contrast, resting against the blue sides of the big ceramic bowl.

Who Are Your Angels? (31)

Posted on by
2

Without thinking, take a leap. Who are your angels? Name them all. Go.

My angels? Without thinking??!!? Oma, maybe. Lassie. Sanji. Bonnie. Daddy. Even Jarv? But oh goodness–how do I do it without thinking? Angels are not supposed to be spirits of loved ones who’ve died but their own “species,” so to speak. I have a hunch it is because of angels I no longer feel alone the way I used to, though maybe growing up has a part in that, too. I imagine angels disguised as birds in my life–the beat of the raven’s wings near my head, the kestrel’s call, that silvered moment when I watched the barn owl’s silent glide in the night, lit by the lights shooting up from the ground at the house on the corner. I imagine a fat angel in a white dress perched on the wooden fence between my home and my landlord’s. She has yellow hair, like the felt angel Mami gave me years ago with the wild yellow curls who hangs on my front gate at Christmas.

[Editor’s note: This is another writing prompt from before I moved into my trailer. Things, as you can see, will be a bit of a hodgepodge while I work toward still meeting my original commitment of 55 posts while I’m 55 in spite of my huge lapse this year. ;-)

I am thinking of working with prompts for going forward, too. I think this is the last of the older ones. I thought some of you might enjoy having the prompts themselves, though I’m afraid I don’t have attributions for these last few.]

Autumn greetings

Posted on by
2

Dear readers,

I am so sorry to have disappeared on you again. I really miss feeling like a writer, and I am hopeful I’ll be returning to regular postings here very soon. Part of me has been tempted to give up this year’s blog, and part of me thinks I need to begin posting every day now to catch up. It tends to be one extreme or the other with me, you know. ;-)

Instead, I have been reviewing some of the blog entries I’ve written in the intervening time but never posted and adding to my lists of ideas, even scribbling a couple of new entries in the last week or so. In short, I am not pushing myself. I’m going to see how this unfolds, and try not to beat myself up if I don’t meet this year’s goal of 55 posts while I’m 55. (But, of course, I’m still hoping I will return so fully to being a writer that I’ll magically meet my original commitment without pressuring myself!)

So, thank you for not giving up on me, and if I end up showering you with posts in the near future (!!!) I will hope it won’t be overwhelming or annoying.

Happy pagan new year, too!

Here is to the turning of the wheel. . . .