Footprints

Each animal leaves his trail exposed in the snow. Impressions left to remind me we have visitors all the time. The snow, a perfect medium for revealing who moved where. I love to look out our upstairs windows, after a fresh snow, where I have a wider view, and see the ribbon-like pathways that wind through the pine trees. I’m always on the look out for a unique one. A footprint that doesn’t look like one of the ones I’m use to. Our foxes are regulars and their size and gait give away there trail easily, as do the deer. The squirrels, smaller but distinct prints, are just as straightforward to identify. Then there is the little mouse, living between two stairs, which I didn’t know about but thanks to his winter explorations I do now. And of course the myriad of bird trails everywhere saying their little feet were exploring for seed.

But the prints I’m always on guard for are the mountain lion’s. It is such an illusive animal. It never fails to fascinate me. Even a hint of its presence brings the power of this animal to full focus. It conjures mystery, authority and intense power, even just with it’s footprints. I found them this last snow. I looked out the kitchen window and noticed the distance between prints was too long for our regulars. And they looked large. I got dressed and headed out for a closer look. As I bent over one I knew it was a mountain lion. There is an overall roundness to them, with a distinct size of three and one half to four inches in both width and length. I love knowing he walked by our home. That he left his impression and not just with his footprints.

Mary

Me and the Rocks

The last stone I placed in the wall said “Thank You.” I heard it clear as day. It was just a moment but there it was - the stone spoke. I had a sense it spoke for all of them. I’d been laying rocks in a dirt wall for several weeks. Filling in the spaces with small plants and moss. It was a job I was made for. Day after day of finding the right rocks, carrying them home and then fitting them into the wall. A lot like putting a puzzle together. Do your remember doing puzzles and how some times you would get on a roll and get a bunch of pieces right in a row and then other times it could take forever to find one piece that fits? Well it is the same idea here. Some days I would have a flow going that nothing could stop. And it would be hard to quit working those days because it felt too good to find one rock after the other that found its place. There is a feeling when a rock finds its home and I can just tell as my cells say “Yep, he’s home.”

Then there are other days when it can take eight or ten tries (or even more) of different rocks to find the one that works. This is not so fun as a lot of these rocks are heavy and putting them in, taking them out, finding another, try again all takes lots of time and energy. But when you find ‘the one’ it feels so good. I wonder if I’m combining my feelings with the rock’s. They have things to say, to teach, these rocks. I feel lucky, even though they are not the easiest things to move around, that they picked me to move them. Sometimes when I pick one up I wonder “How long since anyone touched you and really appreciated you?” I truly love them.

So as this one rock, the last one to complete the wall found it’s home the satisfaction found was not just mine. And the words that came though were really just an extension of the feelings that we’d both been sharing, day after day, me and the rocks.

Mary

The Stream

After following a trail interwoven with a mountain stream I eventually came to sit by her side. The giant boulders welcomed me as I settled into a sunny and smooth place to listen. The sounds immersed me in their melody till I settled deeper and soon fell asleep. A coolness floated in with the sun disappearing behind the clouds and gently woke me. As I sat up I heard the stream calling, almost a yearning. I wondered "What is this?"

It was then I saw the bundle of sticks and leaves stuck between some rocks and blocking the flow of water on its way downstream. I hadn’t seen it earlier but now it was all I could see. The gunk was thick as it had obviously been in this condition a long time. It occurred to me to move a stick, a small trunk, some more sticks and then the leaves started to be swept away with the oncoming clear waters. Before long it was as though there was never a block.

I sat breathing in the crisp yet warm air. A sense of satisfaction settled into my bones. An understanding of how nature gives us gifts without a saying a word. I listened some more as she now sang her tune with renewed clarity. I packed the moment in my pocket and continued on down the path smiling.

Mary

Come Alive

Don't ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

A quote by Howard Thurman

I read the above this morning and headed out to my garden. It’s a very warm late September day, maybe the last one that will allow me to be out here comfortably in shorts and tee. I “should” be resting given the bug I’m, on day five, working out of my lungs and body. But the warmth, light breeze and my cat’s contentment in being out with me keep me from retreating in. I was transplanting to fill in some spaces in the part of the rock wall I built this summer. I hadn’t gotten any plants in the last twenty feet or so. So I take pieces of plants, hopefully willing to resettle at this late date, from the earlier rock wall I built a couple of years ago. This bare section has a particularly steep angle with more rock on rock and less dirt in between for plants to grow, than the other part of the wall with a gentler angle.

As I placed a small piece of a vine-like plant into a crevice I hear “Are you sure I can make it here?”

And with full confidence an answer appeared as clearly as the question posed “Yes, you will make it here. You see not every plant is capable of growing in such tight conditions. You have the strength and wisdom to reach past those two rocks and send out shoots to nourish yourself. You would have to be a very special little plant to get picked for the job. Not every plant is up for this. Besides you have no idea how many others will be impressed and helped by your resolve and fortitude. What you will achieve with what you were given will far outseed all expectations.”

“Well alright, if you say so.” “But honestly two rocks? And you want me to be productive and impress too!”

“You have no idea how many others you will affect. It will be hard to see, most of the time, from your vantage point. But I promise you will survive and live long enough to do what you are planted for. You have to trust life.”

“Honestly, it looks like a pretty dim situation. Those are two tough looking rocks; I don’t see much give there, no less any room for me. Are you sure?”

“Sure as can be. And you’ll be surprised by what you can do and what comes along the way.”

“Okay then, I’ll do my best. But you better give me some support.”

“You got it.”

And so a conversation between the little plant and Being of all Plants took place as the little one snuggled in-between two rocks to settle into a life of much fruitfulness, beauty and kindness. Not always easily but with much grace and laughter. But most importantly the little plant found what made her come alive and that is what the world needs.

Mary

Menu

When your health is on a vacation a whole new appreciation for it awakens. Now I remember, every day is glorious when you wake up relatively well. What an amazing thing to get out of bed, to sip a cup of coffee and walk in the garden. To see Charlie's smile and kitty's playfulness unfurl with each creature that appears on our front deck. It's magical, the morning and the ability to breath with ease. To watch the light illuminate the land and the birds arrive (along with foxes lately.) Each moment served on a plate of health. What could be wrong with that menu? 

The trick is to remember it everyday. To remember it is worth being grateful for. To celebrate it.

Boy is my hunger surfacing.

Mary

A Writer...

A writer is brave. Not in the outward, manly, sense of the word but in a quiet, deep and persistent way. To face the blank page, place your words, thoughts, and musings on its starkness and than share it, is just flat out couragous. Each one of us runs around living in our own version of the universe. Our self, our vehicles, and then a few of us write about what it looks like out there. Or how it feels in here to be interacting with out there. It’s all so subjective yet something makes us pick up the pen, or computer, and reflect, pour out or wonder in words. Maybe our little view might actually connect to someone else’s. Maybe it’s because we often see in to ourselves in a new way by the practice. There is so much to stop you. Excuses can roll in by the truckload. Yet something keeps you slipping by those obstacles to find a way, day by day, to say something. It doesn’t always look like what you think you are about to explore. I have been surprised many times by what emerges. An honesty or truth is often waiting just beneath the surface and the pen breaks through, like a whale lifting out of the sea. At first you think he’s too big to be jutting up out of the water, then you just appreciate the awe, beauty and magic of the moment. Writing can do this. It keeps me coming back. The writer is an adventurer and discoverer, of herself and the world around her. It takes courage to wonder and notice what will emerge in words.

Mary

Appetite

After a trip to humidity and ocean shores what I have an appetite for is endless beach hours. The ones where you role out of bed and find your way to sand seeping between your toes before you are even awake. Where beach rocks fill my pockets to overflowing, so the guy on his morning run gives me that “she must be a little light upstairs” look out of the corner of his eye as he goes by. Where by nine a.m. I’ve gotten a full dose of salt water through my brain and something in my core feels satiated and relaxes and knows the rest of the day anything can happen because I’ve been to the beach. Others feed their hunger in mountains but for me it’s the sea. Any amount of swimming in salt water seems to calm my appetite. The clearer and cleaner the water is the more I feel full, contented, like I’ve been fed the best, most nutritious, meal ever. Sometimes it was hard to tell if I’d ever get out because of the huge famine I’ve been in – of no salt water - but eventually even that void got filled as I swim, float or bob my way toward the shore. I wonder if I’ll ever lose my appetite for the ocean or will it’s call to smell, eat, drink, and merge with it always beckon? I keep forgetting how much I yearn for it. I let myself forget till I’m there. Will it ever get satisfied or will it take me over till I go home to my mermaid ways?

Mary

What Works

Thinking about kitchens, cooking and the variables of being comfortable in that domain. The whole affair with food took me years to engage in, I was a slow starter. I began more like my mother who never seemed to be fully present in the kitchen and I’ve ended up more like my father who definitely found “the joy of cooking.” Now I’m getting to know my seventeen year old niece who opted out of the family vacation to Ireland. My brother and my lives went their separate ways when I left for college. I never really came back to NY so we drifted apart, our interest and life experiences taking us into different worlds. It was easier to keep in touch with sisters who had a similar language. As is often the case, a death, my father’s, brought us to shared ground, which magically became sacred ground. Our shared genetics, in spite of thirty years of a chasm, along with sharing the potency of the moment of death, has brought us back from the edge. Now it feels like we never spent all those years in separate spaces. 

So here I am in his world, his house, sharing ten days with his daughter, who I’ve barely crossed paths with all these years, while everyone else in the family enjoys the Emerald Island. The knock came and I knew in every cell I was going, there really was no decision involved. How could I pass up getting to know a seventeen year old niece? It’s been a little like getting to know a new part of myself that I never developed or visited. She is new to me and filled with her own ideas and inclinations yet strangely we are at home with each other as though I’ve always know her. One of the more amazing things I enjoy about her is her comfort in the kitchen. It turns out, unlike most kids who are avid TV watchers, she only watches the Food Network. This is incredible to me along with a delight. She has a level of ease in the kitchen I still have not mastered. She knows so many of the basics that I never really developed. I’m a self taught cook, no training but a few years of hands on experience. She has experience but also years of watching how to’s, what not to do, how to combine and when, and what works in food preparation techniques. This has given her a confidence and presence in the kitchen I’m still hoping for. The ease in this part of her life and this part of the house has made our sharing time as natural as breathing. 

I may be a visitor in her home and life but I’m certainly the one receiving the nourishment of watching a young pro with simple and elegant moves in her domain. Not to mention the gift of having a part of my family emerge from the depths of the unknown to feed a part of me I didn’t even know was hungry. So now I have expanded my repertoire of recipes along with new family possibilities. It’s good to expand and fun too. Like a new recipe, sometimes it really works-this works.

Mary

Surprise Messenger

Working on the rock wall has brought a few surprises. My connection with the rocks continues to grow. I sense and listen where one wants to be placed and when it has found its home. There is the learning curve on the ability to move a rock, one that is to big for any sane person to move, sometimes even up a hill, by rolling it day by day, till it arrives at it’s destination, that continues to amaze me. But Sunday a surprise came from an unexpected source. Early in the morning, as I was about to move an enormous rock, a clicking sound emerged from underneath an edge that was floating higher than the rest of the rock. Peering down the next thing I see is a very large beetle walking out from below. He’s still clicking which I interpret to mean: annoyance that he had to move. His dark brown coverings and three and half inch long size, gets my full attention. I’m mesmerized as I watched his gyro-scoping antenna’s explore the air in front of him and find a pathway to a new spot. Slowly he walks straight and surly to a rock about four feet away. I watch every movement and have the thought; “I may never see anything like this in the wild again. I think I’ve seen something like this at the Butterfly Pavilion.” It felt like the time I saw two snakes in the before, during and after sex act. Sheer amazement comes over you and you just know this is a ‘once in a lifetime’ event. The ancientness of its structure reminds me I am peering into a long forgotten, but well preserved, prehistoric past.

I have the thought “Maybe there is a message to this visit.” I continued working for the next couple of hours, checking on his whereabouts every now and then. He seemed to be settling into a spot. I built him a rock house with three rocks leaning against each other so he would be protected, from both me stepping on him, and kitty eating him. Later, as I came to work another shift, (shifts are essential as the weight and numbers of rocks I move challenge my strength) I realize I hadn’t looked up Scarab, which I decided my beetle friend must be.

The most notable words I found were; Sacred, Sun and Ra, along with the imagery of rolling the sun across the sky. This last piece originates from the fact that a Scarab actually does roll dung across the earth to bury it with its larvae so it will have plenty to eat as it hatches. A lot of symbolism, used in ancient Egyptian art and burials, feature this beetle. Somewhere in there is also the mention of resurrection, which would explain the burial connection. It was known for disappearing and reappearing. And my friend did disappear but not until after he spent the whole day under his rock house. I thought he might have come to die. But the next morning he was not to be found. I looked everywhere. A once in a lifetime surprise I surmise. But the thought of him rolling something across the earth couldn’t help but hit me as I have literally spent most of the last several weeks rolling rocks, too big to pick up, across the land. I smiled at the reflection my little messenger imparted. Nothing I could of guessed when seeing him for the first time would have prepared me for that knowledge. I thought I was the only crazy one rolling anything across the land. And here he emerges to teach me I’m in good company. And maybe some other things that are yet to resurrect.

Mary

John's Place

We drove up to the garage in the early afternoon. My sisters and I had arrived in Castlebar, a small town in County Mayo, and thought we’d find our second cousin John. He wasn’t there but the non-English speaking Polish man that worked for him tried to relay a message in sign language. It wasn’t coming through. We walked around for a few minutes noticing all the cars in various positions of need. A nice looking woman drove up and got out of her car so we asked her about John. “Oh, he’s always late.” she replied in her lovely Irish accent. “I can call him. He’ll want to see three pretty American women. He wouldn’t miss that, that much I know.” We look at each other as she seemed to have his cell phone number, the one we didn’t have. We guess, being a life long bachelor, he must enjoy the ladies. We know he’s sixty-one and owns this garage. He’s lived in this town, where he was born, all his life. The same town my grandmother was born in. In fact he lives on the land where my grandmother's house was, the same one she was born in back in 1900. He doesn’t travel and has never been on an airplane or traveled far from home.

She gets off the phone and tells us he’ll be here in a few minutes. We chat with her and receive further indications, from her remarks, he’s a bit of a ladies man. She is entertaining in the most natural way, as we find many of the Irish seem to have this innate ability. John arrives saying he thought from my letter that we’d be in the following week. He gives us all a big hug. He is a big guy with a bright smile and a familiar quality. He says he’s available for dinner the next night so we make a plan to meet him at the restaurant. He recommends we drive over to the house to see the land. It’s only five minutes away and there we stand on the land my grandmother grew up on. It hits me as I look around what it must have been like for her to leave and come to America as a twenty year old. It looked remote now, what was it like when she was here? Maybe not much different although we know John took the old house down to build the modest one he now lives in.

We meet the next night at the restaurant. It’s a lovely place, by a harbor. It’s a perfect evening with great seafood, which two of us have been eating since we arrived, one of us being a vegetarian. The conversation flows easily and he is a sweet and thoughtful host. He tells us stories of Irish relatives we’ve never known. He remarks he is only eleven years older than me. He finds that surprising, as he is my mother’s cousin, their fathers being brothers. He tells us a story of someone he knows who just married at age eighty-four. By those standards he figures he is young, and remarks “Maybe there is still hope for me, still time for the right one.” We try to convince him why he should visit us and his sister in the states, but I can see under the agreeable face, he’ll never leave. We will have to travel to see him again.

I loved so many things about being in Ireland. Not the least of which was how familiar it all felt. The land called to me in its stone faces, tucked away wells and dramatic coast line. But meeting our relatives was the biggest surprise and by far the highlight of my trip. The warmth and love that stretched across generations and time and the sea all rested in me.

Mary

Love is All There Is

I know we like to “work” things out. Figure out what went wrong and when. Who did what to you, her or him? And why did they do it and what happened to them, that they did it in the first place? We want to know. How we really feel and what is it we need to say or not because of those feelings. And don’t forget all the times you didn’t say something and someone took advantage of you or you did to them. It usually came from your past and it’s hard work to unwind it. It’s stuck in your body or mind or both. We have ancient history and it screwed us all up. It’s endless digging, surmising, and guessing. It’s all about sorting through the minutia to find the key. The one you must have lost along the way. It must be in there somewhere. If only I could just clean out this or that, or release this or that or remember the first time my mother yelled at me or when I started to believe I wasn’t good enough and why. The rabbit hole.

Yes, you can make it important. We all have and do at one time or another. But it is a new time. New ways have arrived like the sun bringing it’s light each day. New possibilities exist this day as rays reach a little deeper into our hearts and minds opening new pathways.

What if we could remember “Only Love is Real” and everything else isn’t. What happens to all that stuff we thought was so important to work out or didn’t even know we believed, but it ran and limited a part of our lives? Maybe even directed the show. What if we skipped to the ending and started with Forgiveness and remembering Love? Because we knew we were safe and loved and if that’s the truth then it’s not so hard to extend a hand and understand. Maybe we were playing games with ourselves and everybody else, just for the fun of it, because we could. A cosmic hide and seek. And no one ever really did anything to us. Only us. And the way out is not long or hard but simple. Only it requires courage till you get the hang of it. To act knowing love is the only real thing in the midst of confusion, strife or darkness, even if it’s in the littlest of ways. To be the one to make it real when others aren’t sure or are sure it’s not. To claim it for yourself at all times, in all places and then give it away freely.

Maybe the Beatles got it right after all, forty years ago, and “Love is All there Is.”

Mary

Food Matters & Julia

Landing in Santa Barbara in 1979 felt a lot like coming home and though food was not on my mind in those days I was surrounded by it. It started with me waitressing at a couple of the popular tourist places, as I honed in those skills. Lucky enough to move on, in a few short months, to a new place opening downtown called The Brasserie, I started to reap the rewards of a shorter workday, as it was only open for lunch. The restaurant was attached and opened to an upscale kitchen and cookware store that was probably an earlier reincarnation of William Sonoma. The owner, which the store was named after, was far ahead of his time in creative and cooking endeavors and it soon attracted the clientele to match it. His abilities stretched to every little detail, of which I had no idea so many small matters mattered. Like the half hour lesson I remember on the “French Press.” Did you know the water has to boil for just long enough, then sit till just so, before pouring only the smallest amount on top of the grinds? Why? It’s very important not to pour too much water right away as the coffee grinds (ground to a coarse perfection) need room to expand and release their essence while you wait patiently before the rest of the water can be gently added. As I said, 'very specific' matters, but he did this with everything. Which fit right in with my boyfriend of the time, who had taken over as chef, and who had the same inclinations that the owner had perfected and now was the eager student. Mind you I had none of those inclinations and saw no value in them as I kept mum, at least most of the time. But I did obey, as I liked the job and loved my boyfriend.

This was just one of the things I remember along with my first taste of Chocolate Mouse Cake, a new and popular item back then with me and the patrons. The passion of the owner and my boyfriend led them to join in with an elite group that formed with the intent of educating the public on food matters. This would become the base of my boyfriend’s life long work and leadership in the field. But at that time it got the attention of Julia Child who had recently been in the process of moving her set up to Santa Barbara. Eventually my boyfriend got to work on some of her shows, consulting. I, being fairly ignorant of the food world and thinking it was basically as interesting as fuel, which in my mind did the same thing for your body as fuel did for the car, had a few interactions with her. I’d come to pick him up at the end of an afternoon shoot but as usual they were running late. I would learn and never like that everything to do with preparing food, and my boyfriend, usually ran late. I came in, dressed in my typical Santa Barbara beach town shorts, tee and flip-flops. As I was introduced to Julia she commented “Darling, if only you’d have dressed I’d sat you at the table tonight. I could have used a pretty face.” I slinked back into a not too well lit corner to watch quietly till my boyfriend’s role was done. “How embarrassing” was the feeling but I also knew I never pretended to be anything but ignorant and uninterested in food.

Another interaction came much later in her life. I was attending a very large birthday celebration for an eighty-year-old friend. It turned out she shared the same exclusive retirement community as Julia and they had become acquainted. Most of the folks living there were part timers. My friend kept a home a couple of miles away and only visited for lunch and events for the longest time before actually needing to retire there on a full time basis. I guess this was common as the waiting time to get in was extensive and so you had to get in before you needed to. It was said the Julia had her kitchen redone to be exactly like the one she’d designed and loved and lived with for a long time. I’m sitting at one of the dozen, or more, tables when Julia walks up with lots of attention being slathered on her and sits down across from me. She was as regal and as noticeable a presence as ever. Being a fairly tall, large women and known for her humor I thought “Great! She’ll be entertaining.” But her humor and TV spark had faded with the years. She would pass away just two years later at the ripe old age of ninety-one. Yet, that evening, her interest in the food was as lively as I’d always remembered and heard. She commented on each thing, seeming to know every fine nuance about it. A life long love of food served her well.

Luckily my interest in food grew with age and the passing years. I now appreciate it in ways I never would have imagined. I finally get the excitement on the set all those decades ago, the rushing around to make sure it looked just so, the passion and the particulars that made it all so perfect. I see the beauty of the art behind my once shallow thought of ‘food for fuel’ concept. I was slow to come to this and so many other things. But now it is fresh for me, food matters, and I enjoy it all the more with the wisdom of time and memories of earlier moments.

Mary

The Cup

Each one comes, in their own time, and trades their small cup of understanding (of experiences and interpretations) for an ocean. That’s the difference-cup - ocean. What’s amazing is how long it can take to say “Im ready to give up my little cup.” How many teachers are sent, books are read, techniques applied, courses taken, interpretations given and visions revealed before you hand over your cup. It’s okay mind you, it’s only a cup and you are entitled to hang onto it as long as you like. Folks think all kinds of things are necessary to be ready, to prepare, but none of them really are. Simply place it down. The ocean is waiting.

“But how?” you ask. “It’s all I know.” Simply place it down and for a while know you will pick it up at the drop of a hat, at the instant someone challenges you or your sense of self/safety is threatened-in other words-survival. The conditioning is; something in the cup will save you, some answer is swirling around in it’s shallow depths. No-it’s not, but that’s okay if that’s what you want to think for a while longer. But not much.

As the ocean of love arrives at your door you will not care about hanging onto it. You will jump in, swim, play, float, whatever it is for you. You’ll be so busy being a drop of love bopping around the ocean you’ll soon forget your old cup and the limited world you once thought was all there is. You’ll one day have the thought “The Cup?” and laugh and laugh, that for so long you lived your life in protection of it’s fragile nature. That you worked around, planned around and built around it. "A cup", you’ll think, how silly.

Now the ocean requires certain things to stay in. You leave all that planning behind. It’s not about that. All the judgements and needing to do everything right, get left behind too. Being right, forget that as well.

That series called “Left Behind”, they got the left behind part right. They just didn’t get what’s left behind. It’s not a bunch of folks who haven’t followed some rules or paid a certain kind of allegiance to “Jesus” which is what I recall they demanded from my limited exposure. It’s the need to be right, the desire to judge, to prove yourself, greed and power over, these are just a few of the things you put down with the cup.

The cup and all it’s secrets, wrongs and rights (rules) that keep you separate; from someone, anyone, something or anything. All the the time, the whole show, the entire ride in the cup took place in the ocean. You could never have left. It was our imagination playing out the dream of limitations. What a relief. Is it time for a new dream? Would you like a cup of love now?

Mary

A Big Surish Day

Kitty just ran by and up the stairs as fast as any roadrunner. It might appear she really is losing her kitty mind as nothing I can see or hear precipitated this action. Now she is rearranging something in the loft, at least that’s what it sounds like. Jumping from some undisclosed height I wonder if its something in the new food we are giving her. ‘Who knows where she takes her cues from’ I decide. A quote from a cat book floats into my mind “Sometimes I can’t explain myself.” This sums up the situation.

Today is a Big Surish day outside. A misty fog, except instead of moisture of the misty kind we have dry snowballs of the teeny tiny kind. raining from its density. Kitty now sits watching the early birds arrive as first signs of light penetrate the thick fog, just enough to subtly illuminate the deck and pine trees, letting us know how thick this soup is. It the kind of morning I long for. I realize this only now that it is here. It wraps around me as the fog wraps around our home. It holds me and lets me feel what’s inside my inner soup, the comfort of warmth, of pulling in, of being held. Of letting all the inner ingredients stew. Best not to have to many cooks around when stirring inner concoctions.

Kitty switches to her other favorite place-my lap-and begins kneading with head tucked in under my armpit. The small beads of snow turn to flakes as if an order was called out, somewhere up there, to “Roll-em” and now they are flattened to reveal their infinitely one-of-a-kind patterns. The birds sit and eat anyway, snow falling all around and covering the treasure of seed they seek. For a while they will carry on through it.

Maybe we all start out looking like those same-little balls- but our balls are made of light-our soul. Then when the show starts, conception and birth, someone says “Roll-em” and out we come, turning into our unique selves. Instead of the crystalline assortment of snowflakes, we have DNA that dictates our one-of-a-kindness. And though we often think of our lives as taking these long and various roads in the larger arena of our life, it’s as short as a trip from the heavens as a snowflake has to the ground, to merge and melt, into earth and each other. Maybe that’s why we hold a secret love for these beautiful crystals, we see ourselves, our short-lived lives in their pure journey. And as much as we’d like to attach a whole lot of meaning and purpose to our tumbling through time…its really could be just for the trip, for the beauty of the trip. Is that what they show us?

Kitty’s back to the glass door peering at all the feathered varieties gathering. She is crouched low waiting for her moment and she’ll take it even though the glass door will stop her. The fog has lifted a bit, I see the hillside across the canyon again, dotted with pine trees, rocks and snow. The rail around the deck fills with pine siskins mostly, though a few nuthatches, chickadees and juncos are squeezing in. I feel the trees rejoicing for any bit of moisture after their long dry spell. Their needles almost sparkle, whispering Yes! They don’t really complain when they don’t get it. They’ll pull in and get quiet, conserving what they have, they have been through those long dry spells and survived, most of them anyway But, if any water falls the needles will sing. It is how they take in moisture. If you listen closely you’ll hear their song, a rejoicing of sorts.

Do you think snowflakes have a song too?

The snow has stopped, a grey day remains and Kitty has found her latest resting spot. A shoebox, tipped on its side, a perfect size to squeeze into and melt like the remaining snowflakes. Watching birds is big work. Rest is needed.

Me, the moment of fog and it’s gifts has dissipated. I’m grateful for it’s visit, short lived and all. I nestle in with a song of my own, quietly humming….

Mary

The Universe's Charm

Sometimes I just love the way the Universe unwinds things in ways we could never imagine. The fact that I participate in a blog is miraculous enough. I’m not what you would label technical and didn’t even have my own computer till a few months before I was blogging, I’m sure I would never have ventured into that world without my writing group. One of my sisters reads that blog each week. Last week was the Milk story connecting childhood memories to milk. With the writing groups encouragement I posted that story. I don’t tend to put longer pieces on the blog and didn’t think it was that interesting but I listened to their cue. Because I did post it, my sister read it the next day and called to tell me she couldn’t believe I had written about milk. Even the references to the milk man, glass bottles and the charm bracelet, as she had just had a conversation talking about these things the day before. She also recalled riding her bike, with a basket in front, to carry the milk home from the milk machine and our Italian neighbor, Micky Mangiola, who drove the milk truck. Her father-in-law had also been a milk man, which I never knew, and it had come up in that context.
I’m thinking “What are the chances she had similar memories surface about such an unlikely topic, at a similar time.” And how we would have never known if I hadn’t put it on the blog. I’m fairly sure it was a subject that would not have appeared in one of our weekly phone conversations.
Then she says “There’s more.” “What does that mean?” I reply. “I can’t believe we never told you.” (we being our other sister and herself) “Told me what?” “About the charm bracelet.” “What are you talking about?” I said. An aside for anyone who hasn’t read the previous story; after one of my magical walks to the milk machine I was digging in the yard and found a charm bracelet. I thought this was a gift, directly from God, encouraging me forward in my suburban life. Next she says, “Well, we stole those charms and the bracelet at Macys. We finally figured out we had to get rid of it or we’d get caught. Mom was bound to find it, wonder where it came from, so eventually we threw it into the bushes.” I’m stunned. Not in a million years, not to mention the last thirty-seven or so, would I have come up with that scenario. “I’ve actually wondered about the origin many times.” I told her. “Even when I wrote the story, a few days before, it occurred to me that we were the first people living in that house. It had been an undeveloped area so how could there be a charm bracelet buried in the dirt?” I’d always chalked it up to a mystery and thought it added to my ‘gift from God’ theory. But they stole it. I couldn’t believe it. She couldn’t believe they never told me.
Once again I’m the last to find out. This relates to another story involving Santa Claus but I’ll save for another time. It does remind me the universe can deliver playful surprises with a charm of it’s own. Being the last to know something gives it a lot of room to work with.

Mary

Haiku

Word exercise: Haiku, Matter, Tea, Heard


Aster heard the haiku and knew something had dislodged in her brain. What tugged at her was the mysterious nature of its workings. Was this the mystery of words woven into shapes not normally seen? Her mother had taught her to be open in places where many others might have structured fear. It left an indelible print on the way her brain was wired. She knew this but she didn’t understand the inner nature of the mechanics of untying strings of coagulating matter. Could anyone?

Fallen wood
dark, damp moss
a world within whorls


Sipping tea she let the words settle between the spaces in her cells. Calling forward a way of knowing outside of her mind a smile reached through to greet her inquiry. Some understandings are not meant to be linear but are meant to linger.
Mary

The Key

The Key (writing exercise using words: dying, encouragement, disappointed, explore)

As Laura began to explore her dreams in a more consistent manor, writing down bits and pieces of remembered ones, she felt disappointed. Her grandmother told her she would find a key to what she was looking for. But after four months of diligent work only one dream stood-out as eminent. It was a carefully executed accent of a mountain. She was so there, not watching but actually climbing, scaling steep surfaces, exerting herself more than she ever thought possible. Clearly this was a physical challenge along with a mental one, especially after one of her essential tools jettison over a ledge and she had to remain calm. The consistent feeling was long periods of extreme effort giving way to moments of deep satisfaction and an almost pleasant exhaustion. Upon awaking from this dream, she couldn’t remember if she actually summated but she was left felling an inner glow, like all was right with everything on such a deep deep level. Her first thought after recalling the dream and the feeling was that this sense of “all is right” is imminent in her life. But that was three months ago and she was needing encouragement if she was to continue to be a literati of her dreams and find a key.

The whole notion seemed outlandish when granny first said it. But she loved her grandmother and thought she’d give it the effort it deserved. And effort it was, daily, every morning and sometimes even in the middle of the night after a bathroom stop. She might just remember a face, a scene, a name, and following the promise she made to herself, “no matter what, if I remember something, whenever and wherever, I will write it down.”
She thought she would visit her grandmother this weekend to see if she could be relieved of her duties. Not that writing in a dream journal was duty or that she really needed her grandmothers permission to stop but somehow she did.
She put her dream journal in her purse along with snacks for the hour or so ride. As she drove she found herself thinking about what exactly she wanted to discuss with her grandmother. She realized how much she had accomplished over the four months in fulfilling her promise to herself in recording every dream. She’d been so distracted with looking for the key that she dismissed the large achievement of following through with her promise to herself. She started to feel good about it and realized she was dying to tell her grandmother about her sincere efforts, having not shared this with a soul.

As her grandmother opened the door and her arms, with all the smells of her warm home and life surrounding her, Laura realized she already had slices of “All is right with the world” and that maybe that was “the Key” her grandmother had sent her off to find.

Mary