HANDMADE

There was something old as time that called me to the thread,

spinning memories with each pass across colors both alive and dead.

Things long forgotten rose up and sat lightly on my mind,

while friends and foes danced at my side.

I was connected, as if someone was thinking of me.

talking to no one, invisible air waves, devoid of time I passed messages.

were there older lives that I had lived but could not recall?

rich in thoughts, a peacefulness slowly set in beside me,

just as the sun shed it's crimson violet light behind me.

What great adventures I must have traveled in those times,

famous places, great spaces unique to mankind.

remnants of them sometimes drifted through my mind.

now I know I have lived at least nine lives.

who would you be if you could live again?

Picasso, Cleopatra, or Valentino, a romantic hero

I think I will choose something completely new,

maybe Vivaldi so I could live musically,

boldly painting the beauty of the world with sound.

In this way my life is handmade,

each day I start, gathering all of my old lives, 

again and again reconfiguring

into something new. 

 

Good to be Alive

It is good to be alive

Sometimes I can feel the trees grow,

Have you felt it?

I can feel the moon glow in shades of iridescence,

My puppies impatience as she banters with me,

A friend’s pain one thousand miles away…

Some days feel like years in one.

This is how one can be sad, happy, contemplative, content and mad,

Within twenty four hours. 

Ah! so this is how we stretch our lives,

by stretching ourselves, 

wrapping our minds around others and the world.

Early early in the morning before the city is awake,

as I am outside with the dogs,

The air is cool,

As the sun is rising, I sense a million colors shifting through the air,

As the golden light slowly filters in.

It is spectacular. Yet,

There is an uncommon silence while all are sleeping.

I smell the dew and woodiness of the moist air amongst the huge old oak trees,

It seems that I woke the frogs in the distance near the stream. 

I feel the world arise anew.

A gentle light spreads across the drive,

and I feel, it is good to be alive.

by Leslie Rosenberg

Dazzled 10 thousand times a day

oh to be ....Dazzled 10 thousand times a day

Corona at 13 months

corona 1 |kəˈrōnə|noun (pl. coronae |-nē, -nī| )1 Astronomy the rarefied gaseous envelope of the sun and other stars. The sun's corona is normally visible only during a total solar eclipse when it is seen as an irregularly shaped pearly glow surrounding the darkened disk of the moon.• (also corona discharge)Physics the glow around a conductor at high potential.• a small circle of light seen around the sun or moon, due to diffraction by water droplets.ORIGIN mid 16th cent. ( sense 4): from Latin,‘wreath, crown.’.....late 19th cent.: from Spanish La Corona, literally ‘the crown,’originally a proprietary name.

It has been more than a year since I last posted. I have been busy recovering from chemo and living life. I feel 100% now and am still so grateful every day for my health, family, and friends. Recently, I have returned to motherhood with the addition of a new puppy, Corona, and have realized how nourishing it is to my soul to increase my circle of love and renew life. I have also recently had a close friend in a terrible almost fatal ski accident who is now struggling to regain control over her body and mind. This reminds me again that each day is a gift we are given and each day should be spent with this in mind.  A very talented poet, Mary Oliver, captures it in this poem:

“Hello wren,” is the first thing I say.

“Where did you come from appearing so 

sudden and cheerful in the privet? Which,

by the way, has decided to decorate itself

in so many white blossoms.”

Paulus is coming to visit! Paulus the dancer, the potter. who is just beginning

his eightieth decade, who walks without shoes in the woods because his feet, 

he says, 'ask to be in touch with the earth'.

Paulus who when he says my poems sometimes

changes them a little, according to the occasion or his own feelings. 

okay, I say.

Stay young, always, in the theater of your mind.

bless the notebook that I always carry in my pocket.

and the pen.

bless the words with which I try to say 

what i see, think, or feel

with gratitude for the grace of the earth.

the expected and the exception, both.

for all the hours I have been given to be in this world

the multiplicity of forms! the hummingbird,

the fox, the raven, the sparrow hawk, the otter, the dragonfly, the water lily!

and on and on.

it must be a great disappointment to God if we are not dazzled at least 

ten times a day.

slowly the morning climbs toward the day.

as for the poem, not this poem but nay 

poem, do you feel its sting? do you feel

its hope, its entrance to a community? do you 

feel its hand in your hand?

but perhaps you’re still sleeping. i

could wake you with a touch or a kiss.

but so could i shake the petals from the wild rose

which blossoms so silently

and perfectly,

and I do not.   Good Morning by Mary Oliver

the signs were everywhere

words to remember

24x48 acrylic on canvas

In August we traveled to Europe on a dream trip we had planned for 15 years.  We wanted to take the Kids to Denmark to see where Alan's heritage was from. Along the way we stopped in England and Sweden. It was a fun and wild adventure for five without a tour guide.  The signage was so great, we rarely had a map on us.  

It is amazing how informative signage can be if you would only pay attention. When we returned from our trip it was October - the month of breast cancer awareness. All around me there were signs spreading the word that women need to be aware and watchful of the disease.  I was oblivious to these - so sure I was in complete health, immune to cancer. That was someone else's disease.

Now I know one in eight women will get Breast Cancer and the numbers are increasing as time goes on. Regular screenings are recommended for women over 50, however each year the number of women diagnosed in their 20's, 30's, and 40's is increasing. Breast cancer does not discriminate.  Most of these women will find it on their own but you need to read the signs.  For most this will be a lump they find in their breast that won't go away...but for me it was the mammogram. Looking back, 'now' I see I missed some other signs.  I had a strange intense flair up of allergies. I even went to see a specialist to figure it out but we couldn't pin it down. Now I know this was a clue that my immune system was on override.  There was a foreign element in my body and my cells were on all out attack mode.

GRACE

It has been a very long while since I last posted! So much has happened - it has been a monumental year. There were terrible awful horrible moments when cancer struck my father and then it struck me...but there has also been great moments of joy and adventure when our family set out for Europe to discover our roots and I went from a cancer patient to a cancer survivor. Somewhere in all of it is a really good story. 

The best place to begin is with one word, GRACE.   I am not a regular church goer but I am an Episcopalian. When I heard the news that I first had cancer and death was at my side I turned to God for comfort without hesitating. Then when I heard the news my cancer was operable and that it had not spread - all I could think of was "Thank you!"  I just felt so so so grateful to God for giving me more time to be with those I love and for being there for all of us.  Each day as time goes on.. I am trying to live a GRACE-FULL  life.   This is not always easy during chemotherapy on the days when I am not feeling so great.  In those moments I have to look back and remember death to call back the joy.  It is with this great irony that death brings new life to me. 

I used to think this poem by e.e. cummings, somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond - was about love between two lovers but now I think it is about something else. a dance between me. life. death. and God.
 

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers, 
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and 
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines 
the snow carefully everywhere descending:

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals 
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture 
compels me with the color of its countries, 
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens: only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands
 

under pressure

I was just reading the New York Times this morning and came across this article, "In Manhattan, Some Signs of Spring" by Alexei Barrionuevo.  In it he talks about how some of the larger architecture projects are finally being completed after the recession put a hold on some of the more expensive ones.  This project, 56 Leonard, above is by the Swiss firm, Herzog & De Meuron.  I love the sculpture of the squashed silver ball by Anish Kapoor!  So simple with a bit of humor but absolutely beautiful.  If I could strive for anything in my daily life it would be these three things.

WILDWOOD

I just read today that Laika Studios is going to make an animated movie of Colin Meloy's book called 'Wildwood'.  Meloy is the lead in one of my favorite famous local Portland bands, The Decemberists.  He published this children's story last year and it was tooted to become a major hit to rival Harry Potter.  Well -- that didn't quite happen.  The story was inspired by the woods in my own back yard (Forest Park)! So I had to read it.  It's a beautiful hard bound 541 page book with interesting illustrustrations.  The story just didn't grab me last time but now that Laika has chosen it - I think I may give it a second chance.