+ Her Barefoot Heart

Category: writings (Page 56 of 66)

today’s aspiration

 

morningglory.jpg

 

when i grow into full bloom, it will be as a blue morning glory.

most definitely.

 

Blue Morning Glory

 

Voracious, yes. But when you see it,

shy blue flowers blaring like trumpets in spite of themselves,

center star shaped and yellow; when it startles you,

early in the morning, all over a white picket fence, say,

in Massachusetts, you might think “triumphal,” “prodigal,” “awake.”

 

Of course you don’t want it in your rose garden

among all the pruned, the decorous bushes. You don’t want it

in the vegetables, for it will romp through the tomatoes,

beans and peas, will leave no room on the ground, or even

in the air, for the leafy lettuces and cabbages soberly

queueing up in their furrows. It will hog all the sky it can get

knowing as it does what enormous thirst is satisfied by blue.

 

Father Michael says Follow the God of abundance

Says we hurry from the moment’s wealth

for fear it will be taken. Think of this:

 

the morning glory has been blossoming for so long

without permission that in some gardens it is no longer censored.

What does that tell you? See how it opens its tender throats

to a world that can sting it, how, without apology for its excess,

it blooms and blooms, though even yet

it seems surprised.

 

Anne Pitkin

 

my day, in 1 (well, 5 actually) sense(s) of the word

what i saw:

this picture of my mother taken last summer. i was driving the boat. i think it’s easy to see why i ran into that dock.

momtubing.JPG

 

what i tasted:

crispy, crispy, crispy bacon done just right. wasn’t burnt, didn’t move when i picked it up.

 

what i heard:

laughter.

lots and lots and lots of laughter – my sides required ben gay –  as my brother and i visited our own special planet and conjured up images and tales of a gang of 3 geese who are bad to the bone . . . i mean, feather.

i guess you had to be there.

 

what i felt:

the cool, smooth silk hand-dyed by my talented friend glennis.

 

what i smelled:

my leftover christmas candle burning. who says sugar cookie scent is seasonal?

self-portrait, 3 (because yes, it’s all about me)

thawing.JPG

 

i’ve never been more sure of anything: i needed a breather. needed to take out my pencil; pen; permanent indelible marker and draw boundaries around my life, around my time, around my desires. now maybe i couldn’t take a full-fledged sabbatical just now, but i could put some space between me and the constant demands on my time and energy. maybe i couldn’t check myself into a monastery, but i could choose how to spend my hours, my words, my attention. in just two short days of saying things like “not now, i’m writing” and “no thank you” and “yes, i would like that” – interspersed with saying absolutely nothing at all – i felt different.

i saw things – ordinary things, things that are undoubtedly there on any given day, just covered up with a flurry of commitments and responsibilities and who knows what all. thoughts came together with delicious ease and clarity. in their relaxing, my shoulders peeled away from my ears. i smiled more.

i’m already looking forward to another, extended quietcation. perhaps next time i’ll take the plastic off my new zafu.

to sleep or not to sleep

i occasionally have trouble sleeping. as in getting to sleep and staying asleep, so the morning after finds me conducting bleary-eyed woman-in-the-street interviews asking a single question: how on earth do you capture the attention and affection of the sandman? here, my friends, is my collection of answers:

~ don’t drink alcohol.
~ have a glass of wine every night.
~ take a shower.
~ take a bath.
~ down a sleeping pill.
~ exercise before bedtime.
~ don’t exercise before bedtime.
~ splurge on silk sheets.
~ get soft sheets.
~ get a soft pillow.
~ get a firm pillow.
~ buy a soft mattress or a firm mattress or a memory foam mattress.
~ make the room completely dark.
~ develop a bedtime ritual and stick to it.
~ go to bed at the same time every night.
~ keep the room cooler than the inside of your refrigerator.
~ make the pets sleep somewhere else.
~ slather lotion on your feet and chapstick on your lips.
~ lay your clothes out the night before.
~ eat light suppers.
~ eat heavy suppers.
~ play music.
~ play nature sounds.
~ watch tv.
~ don’t watch tv.
~ prop your legs up with pillows.
~ read.
~ light a lavender scented candle.
~ don’t take an afternoon nap, I don’t care how tired you are.

my grandmother slept on a feather mattress with a glass of water and a flashlight on the floor beside her. my brother keeps his room so cold that on any given day you can see your breath. my cousin sleeps with one and paper within arm’s reach.

my children declare they sleep best when under the quilt my grandmother made for me.

i find that some of these things work, some don’t. mostly I find that when I travel, I sleep the first 3 days. maybe i should just become a full-time vagabond.

inception: before and after

shadowsonthebridge.JPG

 

i’ve been dreaming lately.

i love it when i do that.

i’m still trying to decipher some of them.

like the one 2 nights ago about eyebrows.

yes, eyebrows.

eyebrows: hair that protects the eyes by acting as an umbrella, barring entry to would-be vision villains like sweat and dandruff and rain.

eyebrows: those hairy communication tools that are so supportive in strengthening expressions like surprise and anger and disapproval.

i spent the entire dream plucking my eyebrows, and let me tell you: i was giddy with glee having thinned my overpopulated brows and rid my face of strays and runaways.

am i freeing my vision?

altering the way i see things?

getting rid of the superfluous without erasing the necessary?

or do i need/want to pay more attention to my physical appearance?

or maybe get my eyes checked?

(i’m never more indecisive than when it comes to interpreting dreams.)

i spent last night’s dreamtime preserving – funneling hot, gooey, colorful future nourishment through metal wide-mouthed funnels into scalded bell jars.

again, i was giddy with happiness.

honestly, i’d kinda’ hoped for something a little saucier to write about in my dream journal this morning after seeing the movie “inception” yesterday. but no, i just ladeled food into glass jars all night long.

but still, there’s much to chew on . . .

summers spent in my grandmother’s kitchen peeling, boiling, stirring, ladeling. the summer my sister and mother joined me at our farm. we picked pears off the tree that morning and by bedtime, we had jars and jars filled with pear preserves – the best i’ve ever tasted.

is this a dream about memories? i can’t think of a single word or incident in my entire yesterday that would’ve triggered a dream about summertime memories.

women providing sustenance for the winter – is there a message there?

is this a harbinger of famine?

a call to focus (my f-word) and funnel?

sigh.

for me, dream interpretation is best left to the dark early hours, those marvelous, magical hours when anything – anything at all – is possible. my life has been so different in those hours. i am such a different person in those hours.

then the sun makes its presence known, and the magic melts away, though i’m no longer sure why it has to.

a checklist to close out the day

sunset.JPG

Questions Before Dark

Day ends, and before sleep

when the sky dies down, consider

your altered state: has this day

changed you? Are the corners

sharper or rounded off? Did you

live with death? make decisions

that quieted? Find one clear word

that fit? At the sun’s midpoint

did you notice a pitch of absence,

bewilderment that invites

the possible? What did you learn

from things you dropped and picked up

and dropped again? Did you set a straw

parallel to the river, let the flow

carry you downstream?

 

~ Jeanne Lohmann

 

 

(can we pretend that her last name is pronounced “hewell-chambers”, just for tonight?)

 

 

the persistent stowaway

lotusopening.JPG

they’re never on my packing list,

but i never leave home without them . . .

 

hot flash strikes.

out of the blue

no warning

no discernible trigger

just the teensiest little ole’ warning i’ve come to recognize

from paying close attention to myself:

nanoseconds before a hot flash arrives

i can breath more clearly.

my breathing passages just flat-out open up

heralding the arrival of

the intense heat that spreads rapidly through my body,

not discriminating against any one particular area.

i feel like i’ve just been wrapped in plastic wrap –

not the kind you buy in the store –

this plastic wrap sticks.

no air can get to me.

moments before, i could breathe expansively

now i can’t breathe at all.

while my brain races

frantically looking for an exit sign,

my body quietly points to the exist sign

and my brain calms down,

settles in.

i toss out the dismissive, overused phrase “this too shall pass”

replacing it with

“more women than i can count have survived hot flashes. i will be fine.”

then i tune in and notice my body like never before.

this amazing body

that has long been a source of embarrassment

instead of a place of refuge and strength.

on any given day and for far too many years

i scold it, scoff at it, ignore it.

and now, during this wildfire,

i find my way to appreciation.

breath holds my hand

until the hot flash recedes,

regrouping for next time

it will show up unannounced and uninvited

to beam me into my body,

into the present.

 

 

~~~~~

This post was birthed by my participation in Bindu Wile’s 21.5.800 project, and (even though it’s officially ended) Dian’s Self Evidence project (self-awareness).

Technorati Tags: #215800, #SelfEv

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