How does one become blessed? 

Is it a thing at birth? Like a bellybutton, 
a cowlick, the will to live?

I know for myself I was born loved.
I am in love.
I love...

I have young ones you aren't so young anymore.

I offer them things they once adored~ 
Funny stories, warm tapioca, knit stocking filled with simple things that say it again and again. 
I love...I love...

xoxo

Gertie is the Aunt I knew the least yet the smell of her is familiar and sweet. I take her with me; apples, shampoo, sunshine, and a freshly mowed lawn.

She was strong. She held her back straighter than the others, as if to prove she could live further out in the country and could and would survive. And she did. She survived deaths, hailstorms, coyotes, and early frosts.

Aunt Gertie's hair looked like she had just come from the beauty parlor when she hadn't. I remember her washing my hair in her kitchen's big white porcelain sink, wrapping a thick big towel around my head and shoulders and hugging me like she meant it. She'd shoo me out to the front stoop where my Grampa sat in a webbed chair smoking a pipe, watching the sky. He placed his pipe down and nestled me between his legs. I sat watching the sky, watching clouds whisper by. He rubbed the towel over and over until my hair was just about dry, then Gertie, with great strength and love brushed my hair until it shone like the sun, this what she said. I could smell a pie baking; apple  and cinnamon. This was one of the days I learned what love is.

Now, my sweet husband rubs my head as he knows it calms me and makes me happy, and eventually it will put me to sleep. He smells wonderful too; vanilla, coconut, and love.

Not A Dream

I would not leave this earth

To come back again

I would not fly to the moon

Nor go back in time

I would not want to be anything

But the mother of my children

I would not want to be taller, or fatter, or shorter

I would not want bunions or bad teeth

I would not want to be able to walk on water

Though I would love to fly

I would love to know other languages

And instruments

I would love to wake from this dream

And know it's not a dream

august
2015 
snuck 
its 
way 
onto 
my 
path
beaming 
light 
and 
a 
brand 
new 
moment.
what 
and 
who 
would 
i 
carry?
where 
and 
when 
would 
the 
next 
step 
unveil 
itself? 

Summertime and the living is gorgeous. 

Dahlias are blooming at the Botanical Gardens as are so many things.

July arrives and with it long days of light and possibilities open.

The urge is to do it all.

Remember to sit and find the rhythm of your own breath and being.

Witness life unfolding and also the returning to earth.

There will be Birth Days this month.
There will be Death Days too, 

We learn the news of great ones going to the beyond. 

Stop and honor them.

Celebrate it all.

Such a hard thing to do...walk, fly, be away from loved ones.

This the view leaving Burlington, Vermont. Lake Champlain doing its glorious show-off. New spring buds swollen, a green that seems to hold a different name. 
It's hard to look out--tears blur my vision and my heart it full, yet I know the feelings, it comes from love and loving. 

It's sad and sweet and I am eternally thankful. 


Now, I am 'home' yet this place too is just for now...

May is a time of new growth.
May is a time of new birth,
My first born came to/through me in May, what a JOY he was and is.

May flowers bring another type of beauty and joy and for this I am thankful.

This month we will put in the ground, under the newly growing Vermont grass,
the ashes of a wonderful man, a man who turned 100 in January, a man who lived his life
with great health and happiness and raised an amazing family.
I am blessed to be the partner of one of his sons.

May is a time of love and loss, laughter and light.
Embrace it, embrace your loved ones.
xo

Each morning 

I greet the world, 

blessed to witness beauty and new growth

and myself...xo

Passing Through

All morning I practiced being invisible

surprised when the dog barked

and the steamy mirror looked back at me,

where can I go to be alone

I said to the metallic glass

the dog, as he rolled to his back.

Poor Casper the Ghost,

invisible and intangible

was made into a cartoon

a thin line searching for friendship.

I like most

~the flying~

~the passing through,

we're all practicing this one.

How many memories and smells can our hearts hold? 

Today when the sparkling cider was opened to toast the bride and groom my Aunt Gertie snuck out with the fizz. She pressed her fingers still wet from washing dishes onto the folder marked marriage license and I had to look away. 

She was a woman I think of as good. A robust orchard worker though she owned the trees outright. Who can own such a thing? she'd ask while making pies that filled our mouths and bellies. 

Who can own things as complex and simple as apples or trees?

I was thrilled she came to visit today. It's been too long I said to the sky and the sun straining against stained glass windows, it's been too long a time.
xo

This photo captures my yesterday. I wish something close for you. I want times like this to be abundant and me to know how blessed I am to have them. 

Tiny Coves

The day I cry

I laugh

wake up from dreams so vivid

I am surprised to still be here

I should be in Ohio

pulling you and the wagon behind

battening down hatches

tucking treasures into tiny coves

so they not break

surprised

to see the crystal chandelier

still hanging

whole

surprised to see your shoes

on the window ledge

my body next to yours

It’s harder to see the butterflies

on the honeysuckle

through the tears

hard to smell the lilacs

one eye blurs

tears are thunder

skirting around fire

rain hangs in the air

grows heavy like taffy

something to chew on

hope for sweetness

the rain when it falls

opens its hands

throws water down

makes grasses grow

me wondering why