Embrace The Suck

"there are times when a woman needs to walk an walk alone. She needs to walk from the world she knows into one that is foreign an strange and scary. She needs to let in the wind, rain, sun, and to feel the blisters on her feet harden. She needs to let her body lead her sometimes and to trust it no matter her age." Elizabeth Marro   January 31st, and just like that the first month of a new year is over. The January days took my enthusiasm with them. My turquoise door still makes me smile, but none of the trim is done. The matching shutters have not been rehung. The paint cans sit on the shelf waiting as if the last one picked on the playground. While I have continued to walk every day with Bella, I find it harder and harder to pull myself out from under the covers to walk the neighborhood when I'm not at work. I am amazed at the number of excuses I can tell myself! The same goes for my writing.  I remember that tingling feeling I had at the beginning of the...

  "Aunts are special people.  Aunts have a comfy way about them-  Aunts love to chat. Aunts make you feel important. Aunts advise a little and listen a lot.  Aunts are kind of like a friend and a second Mom, all in one. Aunts splurge for little extras.  Aunts tell the most amusing long-ago stories.  Aunts are part of your fondest memories of growing up and of good times."  From an American Greetings card  Friday was the 4th anniversary of my father's death. I've been composing a letter to him in my head on my morning walks. I figured I'd have time on Friday to write out my thoughts. Life intervened and I never got anything written. Then I thought I'd get to it on Sat. But when I checked my phone early Sat. morning I had a message that my Aunt Letty had passed away. My earliest memory of Letty is when I was maybe 9-ish. We were at my grandparent's camp in Vermont. Think On Golden Pond. Letty suggested we go skinny dipping....

(Sorry about the size of the font. I keep trying to make it bigger, but it doesn't change. Grrr. me) "It is not so much for its beauty  that the forest makes a claim upon men's hearts,  as for that subtle something,  that quality of air that emanation from old trees,  that so wonderfully changes and renews a weary spirit." Robert Louis Stevenson Unlike me, the child I care for is a creature of habit. If she does something once and likes it, she makes it a part of her day. If she doesn't like it, she puts an end to it lickety-split with a simple yet firm "no no."  We watched some squirrels one afternoon scurrying up, down and around some trees. Our afternoons now include a daily walk to "see squirrels." Every time we're together we have the same conversation. M: What would you like to do today? B: Outside M: Where do you want to go? B: See squirrels. M: What do we have to do first? B: Clean up. Get key. M: Is that all? B...

  “Methinks, that at the moment my legs begin to move, my thoughts begin to flow.” Henry David Thoreau, 1849 Sweetie has been sick for a week. Coughing, sneezing, achy, lose-your-voice-and-sleep-in-the-guest-room kind of sick.  Except for a few cups of tea and a chocolate milkshake he has resisted all my ministrations, refused to go to the doctor. Last Saturday morning, I started feeling sick too. I was awake at 8:30 am. Eyes wide open awake, not get up to pee and go back to sleep awake. When the thought of getting out of my warm bed and going for a walk entered my head, I touched my forehead to check for fever. I didn't feel warm, sweaty or clammy. I was sure, however, that the onset of such spurious thinking must have dire physical origins. A loss of brain cells that control the control the urge to exercise, perhaps? Or a worm that crawled in my ear and took up residence in my brain devouring the things I like to do (sleep) leaving the things I don't like to do (exe...

I went to a public school in Waukegan, IL, for grades two through four.   From classroom photos of the time, I can see that w hite kids outnumbered black. Too young to know how the world worked,   the disparities in color and class didn't mean a whole lot to me.   After we moved to Florida, w hen I was 11 or 12 years old,  I began to realize that differences between whites and colored made a lot of people uncomfortable. Back then my friends and I were allowed to go to the local strip mall (unchaperoned, on a bike, without wearing a helmet.) We carried enough money with us for a plate of french fries and a cherry coke at the Pic 'n Save lunch counter. Walking down the dark hallway to use the restroom, I had my first sighting of racial prejudice. The bathroom and water fountain were clearly marked "No Colored."  A place in the vicinity of my heart began to ache.  In the years that followed I watched the Civil Rights marches on television.  To...

"A threshold is a place where you move into more critical and challenging and worthy fullness."   John O'Donohue This whole idea of thresholds has me thinking and that has me almost quivering inside to write. I'm a little embarrassed to say that. Writing? Quivering? Seriously? I've been reading some new blogs lately and one of the authors, who I can't remember at this moment, spoke of the very same thing - about being excited about writing again. I suspect most artists get the same way. Writers, painters, musicians. There's the every day kind of creating. There's also the kind of creating that happens when you see a blank piece of paper, a sterile canvas, or sheets of music without notes. The same blankness you have faced many times before, yet the stars have aligned just so, and your creative fire is re-kindled by the Divine Muse and you know, in your knowing place, that this open invitation is for you alone, that you are being called to stretc...

www.vintag.es centerofthewest.org I can remember as a girl racing down a big hill on my bike, my feet balanced on the handlebars (something like Rosalind Russell in this photo), braids flying in the breeze, no helmet, no knee pads, The only protection I had in those days was a belief that I was invincable. I should have been concentrating. Instead, my only thoughts were on the show I would perform for my neighbors. Thunderous applause rang in my ears. I'd start out slow then build to a dazzling cresendo akin to the wild west shows where the girls rode around a ring flipping back and forth across the horses back, turning circles, and standing up on the saddle with outstretched arms. When I was 9, I did more than just aspire to greatness. I was great. I was also something I haven't been in ages - fearless. I ran down hills, snuck into movie theaters, investigated off limit places on the Navy bases, and sat with an older boy sat in the woods behind our house. I was gutsy...

"I have decided to start by wearing hats. I’ve always loved them but feared they didn’t look right on me or that other people would think I look weird. I hereby declare that I don’t care if I look weird."  Carol Folsom, New Year's Resolution In an effort to support our fellow Chat, Carol, in keeping her new year's resolution, the first Chat Noir Writers Circle meeting of 2015 was deemed "Hat Night." With an exception, or two, because we are nothing if not a band of rebels, each of us donned special hats. Let me just say as an aside, Panera Bread where we meet has rarely seen such joie de vivre.   To start the night and new season of writing we began with our own version of the Japanese ceremony known as Hari Kuyo . The 400 year old ritual involves sticking old needles into chunks of tofu as a way of showing thanks for their hard work. Although most of use computers to write we offered our old pens to the Divine Scribe and prayed that new pens and o...

"Did you know in some parts of the world, Epiphany (January 6, which brings the Christmas season to a close) is celebrated as Women's Christmas? Originating in Ireland, where it is known as  Nollaig na mBan , Women's Christmas began as a day when the women, who often carried the domestic responsibilities all year, took Epiphany as an occasion to enjoy a break and celebrate together at the end of the holidays ."  Jan Richardson It's been over 10 years now, since I had the crazy idea  dream to host a Baby Shower for the Blessed Mother. It would be held on. or close, to epiphany, when, as the story goes, Wise Men followed a star in the East to bow down before the humble king born in a cow barn. Back then I couldn't get the idea of a teenage girl giving birth to a baby - not just any baby but one announced by an angel as the son of God - far from home with no women around to help her labor. Poor Joseph had his own issues to deal with, so I doubt he was helping ...