as plaid to weather

The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched. ~May Sarton 

Good mid morning...it gets to be about this time before my brain kicks in although I'm up at dawn with thoughts only- of getting the fire going.  It may be 6 degrees outside, with a stiff wind blowing- but I am in here- safe and warm- so I will write a bit apologetically- of January. 
Flurries and bitter cold for today.  In Maine they don't actually call it flurries, they call it showers and that is an apt description.  The way the wind blows and the snows come- seems to me a plaid design...coming from all directions and often ugly when taken to the extreme.  My mind works in mysterious ways- I can't say for sure why I'd attribute something as unnatural as plaid to weather related circumstances- but I do.
Do you, dear reader- often wonder why you think the way you do or how is it that you pick up something familiar and add some kind of twisted symbolism to it?  Again, please forgive- it is January and what else is one to do but clear out the cobwebs in the old brain?  Yes, there's that as well as Clean up the desk and organize the clutter.

  That is my goal today. 

 I have gotten awfully good at not keeping anything worth throwing out so the clutter is actually of use...but not in it's current state.  Piles here and there, a bulletin board over the desk displaying many good intentions with thumbtacks to emphasize and hold some direction I had intended to go in- in place.  
I seem to be getting better all around, meaning- blood pressure, pretty good.  Goals- at best like little candle flames at the end of the tunnel, still flickering.  Seed orders, progressing.  Writing, writingwriting...aaargh.  It's hurts my heart and my head- to bring out the gook.  This blog of many colors has taken a back seat to the writing I won't share until it is bound and delivered or simply gone through and bundled for kindling.  Therapy for me in season- writing in the winter, farming in the summer.  Both begin with seeds, some take root- some go to more seed, some take years and years to produce a crop...and many never germinate.

(I can't help but think that the John Wayne calendar just aside the bulletin board is inspiring me to be ever more qualified in writing about the lessons I've earned...my Em gave it to me as a gift and I do so love the Duke.  I enjoy his movies but more importantly to me- Mr. Wayne has always had a special place in my heart.  Maybe it was his walk, his talk but most probably- he wasn't a fearful man in a role or as a participant in life to my way of thinking and recalling. 
 I remember being the only girl in third grade who diligently tried and did walk like the Duke and was frequently made fun of because of my gritty, hitching stride- but I just figured some day, they'd get theirs...and I would keep walking as I please because that surely was the thing to do, per John Wayne's lessons to me.)

Well, that's the post today~

  Rather wide and far reaching, deep and uneventful- January.

Take care-

time away from time

I often told my children stories- some made up, some repeated, some to teach...and some plucked from the clouds floating over head.  Often times, laying like that- with one foot propped upon the opposite knee with free toes wiggling against the bluest beautiful background of a Midwestern sky- shapes would form from the clouds and we'd call out to one another-"See the pig?!"  "And how about that one...it looks like a dragon or a sea horse, do you see that?"   "No, that looks more like a castle!"  (Mathew always saw fortresses and dragons, Lily- wild, free soaring creatures, Emma saw princesses and evil queens and Beau almost always saw mountains with giants and gnome like creatures.  Isn't that odd,  to wonder on the same sky and the same clouds and yet still,  see different things?  
And speaking of different things, I wonder- do others conceive of garden beds as actual little beds for their childlike seeds?  Do you straddle a furrow with your knees on either side and gently though firmly, place each seed in the coolness of the earth there and tuck it in, as if putting it to bed hoping in time, the "child" will rise from it's sleep in a burst one day, stretching itself in the sun?  I think of these things while tending the newly tilled garden- as if I am not a farmer, but a mother tending to her children.  And this may be a really weird way to look at it or even read about, but can I tell you something?  When in anything you do, you feel of your higher self or feel washed over in a way that the eyes cannot see but the something in you recognizes this loveliest of feelings, it is worth repeating...

 We have all known it, at one time or another- this simple recognition of serenity.   In our babies, our kisses, fishing, scents and sunshine...fleeting moments that have long since passed but left a trace like a stitch in the tapestry of our lives.  It is here.  It is there.  But in the rush of living we cannot know it.  It is not  in the cell phone, TV, computer...it is in the moment.   Only you in a moment of time unrecognized by any apparatus or book or voice- will know.   To live, to be all that you are comes from recognizing in the moment- the fullness of it.  

Take time away from time soon, wiggle your toes towards the clouds...let the sun seep in and the grass tickle your neck.
Take care-