Snatch it back and hold it.

My sister visited for about 14 hours. It was good to see her. She was on her way to NYC but the visit was a flash. We did get to see the Lilac Festival and it was lovely! She seemed to enjoy it! All the lilacs were in burgeoning beautiful bountiful bloom! Her favorites were the white buttery-smelling ones. I prefer the dark almost reddish purple ones.

Update on the back: I got a massage Saturday from Jill. It was a total godsend! I feel a million bajillion times better! Also, I had a doctor's appointment this morning and was cleared to go back to work, so spent my first half-day back. I did fine, my back did fine and I got to get back in the swing of things. Yay!

In other news:

I learned yesterday that my birthday plans fell through. I was all hopped-up on the anticipation and the news caught me in the gut.I proceeded, forthwith, to drop into the Depths of Despair. I did Anne of Green Gables proud, I tell you what. I have since decided that's just dumb. It can't be helped and moping over things that can't be helped is just dumb. I therefore decided that I should totally not mope and instead make other plans. It's the gosh darn day I was born! Holy chocolate cheese cake batman, I'm pretty fond of the fact that I exist! I think I ought to celebrate it.

I went for a walk today in Mt. Hope Cemetery and the pink dogwoods are in bloom and the fountain is on for the Lilac Festival and it is so lovely and picturesque! It occurred to me during my walk that *this* is what I can do tomorrow! I am totally going to pack a picnic lunch and bring my sketch book and tromp around lookin' at all the old back-woods parts of the cemetery. Oh! And I can go to the Elwanger Barry Gardens!!! I haven't done that this year yet and I always love it and they always open it for the festival. Yay! I'd forgotten about that. And, if it rains too much I shall take myself to the butterfly garden or the conservatory (or both, why not? It's my birthday!). At any rate, it will be a luxurious day and afterward I will shop for something fresh and delicious and will cook a decadent dinner on Maria's grill and it is going to be a lovely day. I decided.

Anyone want to come over for cake? I am thinking that I may make a run to Cheesie Eddies. Just sayin'.


Edited to update info, correct spelling, attitude adjust, putter and generally word-smith.

Welcome, spring.

Welcome, spring --
Glorious, green and new.
Welcome soft rain on new grass;
On flowing places
shadowed and quiet and just beginning.
I know you,
welcome home.

I made a new poem. Its becoming a thing.

I love this time of year -- tulips and daffodils and hyacinth bobbing their spring-bulb heads in the soft afternoon rain. Grass is green and starting to grow crazy-like. It gets ahead of the urban grass-trimmers this time of year. I think maybe it is because it is often raining in the afternoon when they get home from their 9-5 work day or maybe it is just because it just grows so fast this time of year? Anyway, it is wild and new and floppy-haphazard. It pleases me to see the crazy little things that pop up in the midst of the grass-forest -- random grape hyacinth and lily of the valley and crocus making their grand escape from the garden . Be free little spring bulbs, be free!

I live right around the corner from Highland Park in my current little apartment. My landlord is raising the rent and I am poor, so it may not be my current abode for long, but for the time being I am right around the corner! I walk there often, usually daily, though not this week*. It has been wonderful seeing the seasons turn from deep winter, white and crisp, to burgeoning spring ripe with pregnant buds of flowers soon-to-bloom. Right now, the lilacs are fat and ready to burst open, just in time for the Lilac Festival. For those of you unfamiliar, the Lilac Festival takes place every year in Highland Park, which is home to a huge assortment of gorgeous Lilacs. I think (though I may be wrong, the facts must be corroborated), over 1000 Lilac Bushes are planted there. It takes place during two weeks in May and it starts this Friday. I haven't traditionally been a huge Lilac Festival goer, but as I live around the corner I think I'll pop in to hear some music now and again.

Spring brings me wonderful packages in the form of blooming things, slow walks and sweet smells and quiet moments... and this year, visitors:

• The first visitor arrives this weekend. On Saturday night, my sister arrives from Chicago for a short visit on her way to New York City. In case you were wondering, I hold my super-fabu-great-o-rama big sister in unconditional positive regard. She's great (she's a costume designer, makes her own line of jewelery with nuts and bolts and gears, can write with her toes and has a lovely singing voice)! She's sweet (she used to sing me to sleep at night when I was a wee thing)! She's brave (she is picking up her life in LA and traveling out west to make a more fulfilling career for herself)! Plus, she's my sister!
• The second visitor is not so much a visitor as a much anticipated arrival. On Tuesday evening, which is my birthday (thats 5/13, folks), Awesome Kelly arrives in Rochester! Yes, it is true. On the evening of the day of my birth, after finishing the world's most arduous two weeks of test/final/school/life intensity that morning, she'll be making the 5 hour drive to Rochester. Which is just sweet and, I am beginning to realize, typical of her. I am gushing a lot today about spring and people I hold in positive regard but I can't help it. What time is it? It is springtime and the flowers are blooming! ...and, in case the name didn't clue you in, I am of the ardent personal opinion that Awesome Kelly is, well, awesome. I can't even begin to say how pleased and excited I am about her arrival! I might pop from excitement! ...Well, I might.
  

In other news:

• *I have f-ed up my back. I did it at work, slipped on ice chips. It sucks and I am feeling restless and overtired 'cos it hurts and makes it so I can't be as active as I like and it keeps me awake at night. Soon. It will get better soon. I have hikes and expeditions and positions I'd like to explore. So yeah. Sooner is better.
• I am *also* in the middle of working on my Statistics final, which I hope *not* to flunk. I think I am missing the statistics synapse in my brain. I really do. I look at it and my head goes all fuzzy. Maybe it's just panic clouding my thoughts. I dunno. I finished the first two questions, so there's that.
  
• I have made the decision to finish out this year with the MS/PhD program. I promised myself a year, which will be complete as of this summer. I am seriously considering alternate options for my career trajectory. I'll write more about that another day when I have more solidness under my feet.

And that, as they say, is that.

Shadow Places

Welcome back to the inner ponderings of my mind.

Deep thoughts, by me:

There was a time when I felt like I was in a shadow place most of the time; that I lived there and was becoming pasty and golem-like. It was dark in there, dank and hard to see. I cracked my shin (painfully) on truth and lie alike, more than once... and more than once I felt in my heart that I was a walking bruise as a result. This is the shadow place. In case you were wondering, it is not a good place to hang out

The thing is, everybody has this place. The question is do you live there or do you navigate it with purpose or do you deny it? There is no escaping it, because it just *is*. You cannot protect yourself from it. Because, see, shadows serve a purpose. They *are* protection... they offer cool respite from the noon-day sun, they protect us from its rays when it gets too intense and they describe the denseness and opacity of the shape of an object when we cannot see the object itself.

So. What does one *do* with one's shadow place?

For me, for me... I have learned to pause when I find myself there; to think first of protection and safety. Then, I illuminate. Because, see, shadows are cast in sharpest relief in the brightest light. When things are nebulous and undefined and hard to grasp, it is the edges that show me the shape and depth of the shadow. So I look for the edges of things. Edges speak to me. They tell me where things begin and end... and in the absence of knowing, define in some small way, the scope of what is contained within. Because see, it's *my* shadow place. It may have hard things in it that bruise me, but I don't have to whisper or tiptoe around them. I can turn on the hip-hop, open the windows, sweep up the dust bunnies, pull out the old credenza, climb on top and dance (just a little bit, just for myself ).

Artic Tern

Photography credit: Wikipedia


I made this while contemplating existentialism (and that one sanderling poem and a song my family used to sing on road trips ...and my father). I have this paper I should be writing but apparently I feel moved to write poetry instead.

Arctic Tern
Over the Gulkana River
the Arctic Tern dips the sharp edge of her wing
and rides the vortex of the wind,
slicing perfect circles out of the sky.
She is making windows to the cosmos
for the spawning salmon below.
Proud and dying, they struggle upstream
shedding eggs and rose colored flesh
as she dances with the midnight sun.

Edited to add a picture of an Arctic Tern and 'cos I thought of a better ending, how I do.

Truth and Beauty

Photography, artistic and general brilliance credit: Awesome Kelly.

Do you see this?

*This* is beautiful to me.

It is beautiful in vision and execution and intent.

It is so beautiful it makes me want to cry.

I look at it and it feels like the weight of these stones is connecting the cosmos to the core of the center of the earth.

It looks like truth feels to me; like centered solidness in the midst of an impossible balancing act.

It dances.

It plays with the idea of symmetry and the orange late day sun.

Ever have someone make something so beautiful it steals your breath away and then say it was inspired by you?

I am so touched I don't even know what to do with it.

How does the meaning of meaning make the world change shape? What is beauty? What reaches out and connects a heart to an object? To another person? What inspires? What *resonates*?

Confessions of the telephone variety

I haven't, as a rule, been much of a phone talker in my life.

Pretty much I have used the phone to make plans, not to chit chat.

It has been a bit of a joke among my friends, actually.

As a result, cell phones, phone bills, phone bill plans, talking plans, long talks and other phone conversation-related factoids are among the things I have an inscrutable naivite about. I don't know why, but historically, phone conversations always kind of made me uncomfortable. Maybe it is because I grew up with a party-line? More likely it is that I can be a bit of an ADD-girl in conversations. I do listen, but my mind makes connections and then I change subjects or wander during conversations in general... this fact is highlighted on the phone. Also, the part where you can't see the facial expressions or read body language makes me feel disconcerted.

Anyway, it doesn't matter because all that is over for me now.

All because I have discovered joy in talking on the phone. Delight, even. A lot of it. With one person in particular, with whom I talk on the phone. A lot.

So here I am, I finally get the telephone.

Which is wonderful. It has opened my eyes to a new delight! I heart these long talks.

I have discovered that late at night when I get sleepy-drifty, it feels as if space kind of folds in on itself like one of those morning glories at twilight ...and sometimes, sometimes it is almost like being right *there*, you know?

Which is wonderful. Awesome, even.

Except for the part where I am totally naive about phones and phone bills and charges. Yep. I knew that perhaps there would be some cost. I learned today, with the arrival of my phone bill, that there is a very hefty charge associated with this new found delight.

This fact makes me feel resentful, and possibly grumbly.

So, my confession of the telephone variety is that now that I have discovered the delight of the telephone, I don't care to give up my new favorite thing!

Hmmm.

When the universe breathes.

The sun was bright and the sky was brilliant blue.

The universe filled her lungs and blew soft intermittent puffs of wind at the trees, kicking the snow off of the branches above in sheets of twinkling, blowing magic.

Saturday was gorgeous. It was just the sort of warm edge-of-winter day that makes hope for spring soar.

I had a shiney weekend, and you?

Night Flying

Last night I went night ice-skating with my friends Maria and Julie and their bevy of lesbians. I am not much of an ice skater having only done it a handful of times in my life... but I was feeling stressed out by statistics and the fact that I had to walk away from the house. I am real sad about that, but I just couldn't do it. Anyway, I needed the break and ice skating presented itself. I am so so glad I went! It was gorgeous and fun! The movement is a lot like skating on skis, so I was able to figure out how to move forward briskly (eventually). Not so much on the stopping part, but I didn't fall!

Also, Maria and I took a moment to wax poetic about the evening, as we sometimes do and a poem was born! I am so pleased with it that I am going to share it!

But first, I am going to paint a little background for it. Maria once went on a trip and memorized a poem for me as a gift. It was among the most precious and thoughtful gifts I have ever received and was called Sanderlings http://www.geoffbartley.com/geoff_bartley_026.htm. A gorgeous read (particularly if it is read to you), that I heartily recommend. At any rate, Maria and I were racing across the twinkly twinkly ice discussing the loveliness of the full moon and how graceful Julie is on ice skates and in general. Flying across the ice and musing about the moon with Maria made me think of night flying both in action and in words and a poem was plucked out of the universe whole. Here it is:

Ode to the fullness of the moon,
and the grace of my lover.
Light reflected off her blade
cuts quick;
cuts clean to the heart of me.

Thank you again for the poem Maria! For both of them!

Conundrums and Spring.

Well, poop.

This here is my conundrum, which is not so much a conundrum as a situation. It involves the Housey-house which I made an offer on and want so much. I am in the process of making a decision on this house. The recommendations from the inspector came to about $8k in repairs (!) Plus the old furnace that will need replacing, probably in the next year or two. They've offered me 6k @ closing and I'd need to mortage or come up with the rest. I love the place, but I'm not sure I can swing the extra 2k + furnace. I outbid three other people with my offer and don't think I have anything else left to work with. I have to redo my budget. Again. Possibly thrice. I hope I can make it work... if not, well, then not.

I say that with a resigned sigh because, well... I have been trying to figure out a way to make it work all night and haven't been able to. So, at the moment, I am thinking that the answer is not. Not unless I figure out a way to do it in the next hour. I must decide. Today. By noon.

Plus, finish my statistics midterm which is kicking my ass.

*however*

It is now officially spring, and I cannot do anything but delight in this fact. To celebrate, I went for a nice tromp yesterday evening for about an hour through the park. By the time this dilly-dallier got outside the day's bright sunshine had faded... but this start to spring needed honoring, so I bundled up and walked forward.

On the way I saw some things that made me wish for a camera:

• It was snowing lightly and very cold. The melted water flow from the day's sunshine combined with the quick freeze made these very lava-esque ice flows on the ground that were just beautiful (but quite treacherous to traverse)!
  
• A handsome young boxer mix with his ear-flap hat wearing human.
• A very long blond branch that had been mostly stripped smooth of its bark. I helped it get fully stripped and then felt inspired to prop it up vertically against the biggest darkest tree trunk I could find. It made a gorgeous contrast and ended up being visible from the departing gates of the poetry garden. It was a very Andrew Goldsworthy moment!
  
• The pale and tender heads of hopeful snowdrops poking through the ice, yearning toward the sun.

Happy spring, y'all

Crimson

Wrapped in damp shades of grey,
the contours of this day
shift and move.

A blending of shape,
without edges or hue.

Behind these eyelids,
the enfusing warmth
of an imagined shoulder
beneath my cheek
is a drop of
saturated color.

Crimson,
expanding slowly
onto moistened paper -

It blossoms;
It spreads;
It becomes.