Random Thoughts

"I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore ... I hear it in the deep heart's core." William Butler Yeats Dictionary.com defines refuge as " anything to which one has recourse for aid, relief, or escape ," and lists asylum, retreat, sanctuary, haven, and stronghold as synonyms. Other bloggers I follow have recently written about places of refuge - a porch, a garden, a woodsy path. Firebryd calls the porch she's been visiting " this sanctuary for my soul ." Sorrow says of her labyrinth, it is " my grounding point. My deep connection with self and with my faith in something greater than myself ." And Swallowtail wrote of wildflowers, " how tenacious their grip in the dry soil, how these beautiful beings support me ." All topped off by a photo on The Bedlam Farm Journal of a wooded path somewhere in eastern New York state. I think I am missing such a place in my life. I look around for a place to go to unwind and ...

"If the sight of the blue skies fills you with joy, if a blade of grass springing up in the fields has power to move you, if the simple things of nature have a message that you understand, rejoice, for your soul is alive." Eleonora Duse I was looking out the window this morning at my upside down, Topsy Turvy tomato plant. It's got lots of leaves on it but only a couple yellow flowers, which is about as many fruits as I ever get from my gardening efforts. I watched as jays and a woodpecker shared seed at the bird feeder. The woodpecker perched gently on the feeder, picking through the seed with his long pointy beak. Most of the seed flew over his shoulder and landed in the chair where 2 jays sat waiting for the goods to fall right at their feet! Then I noticed the Brown Thrasher at the bird bath. Every year what looks to be the same bird comes to our back yard to bathe - usually once a day. I haven't seen him lately and I have had choice words for the neighbor's...

"Memories, light the corners of my mind Misty watercolor memories of the way we were ...." Barbra Streisand Preamble: Everyone in this family has heard stories about "Genie," the girl my father almost married. Yet none have ever met her until this week. On Tuesday we shared a reunion that was close to 36 years in coming. In 1973 my Dad went to Tennessee to bring my sister back from her first year at college. While there (with my mother's knowledge) he and Genie had dinner together. Other than that they had not been together since attending the Rose Bowl game in 1939. After he graduated from the Naval Academy Dad's ship, the U.S.S. Richmond, was sent to Honolulu for overhaul and that is where he met and married my mom. When he wrote Genie to tell her that he'd found another girl, she sent his Naval Academy miniature back so quickly he's thought all these years that she was relieved to be set free. Mom wore that ring for several years before "acci...

“Expecting is the greatest impediment to living. In anticipation of tomorrow, it loses today." Seneca A lot has happened around here since I last posted about cleaning and fussing. To say I'm a whiner would be an understatement. To say if I would just keep things picked up on a regular basis I wouldn't have to go through the trauma of a major pickup would be a "Duh!" I'm reminded of a program Robert and I used to watch when he was about 2 - The Big Comfy Couch. If Loonette the Clown didn't make a mess in the course of the show then her doll Molly did. At the end of every show the camera would pan out as Loonette viewed her surroundings. She always had the same reaction. "Who made this big mess?" she'd ask, knowing that it had to have been her. Then she call for a "10 second tidy" where everything got stuffed under, into or behind the couch. I think if I had more 10 second tidies, I wouldn't be faced with 24 hour cleaning marath...

"My theory on housework is, if the item doesn't multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you? Erma Bombeck A little before 9 am ... I'm up and just folded the clothes I washed last night. Got that chore done ahead of time. I'm on a roll. Well, sort of. A little before 10 am ... I feel angry. Or maybe I feel scared. So far today I've broken lamp and the dog stepped on Sweetie's sore toe. He growled. The dog ran for cover. I glared. If it had been the other way around and my sore toe had been trampled, I would have been on the floor blubbering. Sweetie, I think, would have tried to soothe me. I doubt he would have glared. Being in this cleaning/angry/scared/frustrated, confused state is not my best side. I'm on a cleaning frenzy. I've vacuumed floor boards and headed for the front door. I don't remember when the threshold to our home was last cleaned. Obviously not recently. We live in Flor...

"Speaking comes by nature, silence by understanding." German Proverb Someone I love has been having a rough time lately. Its so hard to know what to do or say and even harder to know when the time is right for either. On top of that I've been having some really weird dreams. Such as having to sweep up piles and piles and piles of dirty kitty litter; and everyone else in the dream but me seeming just a bit daft. I don't really understand the dream, but it became clear to me after a bruhaha with my Dad that anger might be the connecting thread. It's hard to guess why a teenager who lives like a princess would be so angry. Then I started looking at my own life instead of pointing fingers at someone else's. I remembered the girl I was at 14 and remembered how angry I felt. Then I remembered being 15 and being tied to my bed and locked in a psychiatric ward. Then I remembered more, and more and more. I wrote it all down in the form of a letter. Turns out I n...

"Chaos is something that interrupts the flow of life, that breaks into the expected rhythm, that forces us to stop and deal with its difficulty. The seriousness of the chaos depends on the gravity of the threat to what we value in our life. " Patricia Livingston I feel like I've been living in an emotional cyclone for the past few weeks. Maybe it would be more descriptive to say that I'm standing in the center of the storm, and many of the people I love are in the spin cycle. Since they are at their wits' ends this co-dependent caregiver is too. As I listen to tales of lost love, too much stress, and a teen gone berserk I long for the days when a freshly baked chocolate chip cookie, a glass of milk or a back rub could miraculously make things all better. Where is a good fairy godmother when I need one? All this chaos got me thinking about one of my favorite books. This Blessed Mess . I think I've written about it before. The author's premise is that creati...