Words, Feelings, Stories

The push begins from deep within The bands begin to tighten Pushing in and shoving out Throbbing with each breath It grows with sound and sight and light And heartbeats make it quicken The headache from hell Is really doing well Like the parasite it is It grows and devours All my waking hours And makes me quite a drag. Useless gutless log of pain Wondering when it all will end Wondering what relief is And where and why is it not mine? Day three this week and no end in sight Migraine my pain my life

  It's been a grayish rainish day today and now that night is creeping in, the sunlight has taken on a misty mystic haze of almost-but-not-quite-a-rainbow light. The air glows like golden dust. The sun is behind the trees now. The trees are haloed in the diffused light. Not quite colors quiver as leaves tremble. Along the alley, a long lazy ray of white light makes its way down the pavement, perfectly placed evenly with the edges. At those edges, where the light meets the grass, the color blossoms into golden fizz, dancing above the ground. I reach for my phone, my only camera, and try to capture this ethereal moment that was already fading. I cannot, of course. The magic is beyond both my skill and the phone cameras abilities. I hope my words have helped you to see it. A slice of time such as this is meant to be shared,and i am sharing it with you.

  Sleep oh sleep Rapture of the deep Unknowing Unsowing Ungoing Sweet sleep Emptiness to keep So steep So deep No peep Forever

Sitting on my porch listening to the rain. Watching the water dance in the streetlights. İ hear the birds stirring and waking on this damp and probably dreary morning. They seem to be complaining as vigorously as the "good morning sunshine" people do. İ smell coffee brewing. Been smelling it for about a half hour now. Lovely strong and warm. İ smell it most mornings when I'm out (or have my window open) at this time. İ like to think it is from the coffee shop up on the corner. They open at 6 weekdays, i think, so maybe they start brewing early for themselves. İt could be a going to work neighbor, of course, although i don't know of any who are up and about quite so early. İt is good to sit here in the Outdoor. Too bad it's not quite warm enough to sit with bare feet on the wet wood. That connection would feel so completing. Completion is what I need to earn my rest, i believe, and it has eluded me for all this night and the day before. İ am weary of the incompleti...

I need trees! The pictures just aren't doing it today. At @20 degree temps, I can admire the waterfalls from my chair, but it's just not working for trees. I need the shaded hidden green areas where the giants dwell. They needn't be green themselves, which is fairly rare in this place at this time of year, but they need to be somewhere in the verdant hidden spaces that only tree lovers can find and cherish. And touch and smell, and be immersed in. I need to put my hand on the bark, and feel in my soul the stirring of the sap as the year begins again. I want to feel the moss, live and lush from recent snowfalls, or dry and dusty from cold, and feel the incipient life therein. I want life to blossom and winter to end. I want to touch the trees that touch the stars.

This cold winter's morning, as the darkness edges away from the horizon, I find myself wishing that I was--elsewhere. And maybe elsewhen. What would I be doing, and where would I be? Sitting in a rocking chair on a porch, wearing flannels and wool, wrapped in a blanket, a quilt, a comforter. Which or how many of these would depend on the temperature of the air and the prevailing winds. In my hands a hot drink. It doesn't matter what. Tea, coffee, cocoa, a toddy, hot lemonade. The steam from the drink both warms and wets my nose. The warmth of the contents warms the cup and the hands that hold the cup. Or do the hands warm the cup, keeping the fresh warmth from escaping? No matter. It and I am warm and we hold one another in warmth. Before me are treetops. Behind me, behind my home, are trees. Layers of trees. Rows of trees. Rising solemnly in ranks and ledges and lines. They stand silent, or Not-so-silent, in the breaking of day. They rustle, they murmur, reminding me of stretc...

Tonight's the night! Put on the socks, wrap a quilt around my head and shoulders, wrap my hands around a hot cuppa (for me, coffee) and sit on the porch. It rained today, so the light is shimmering. The lowering temperature has the air smelling so clean. The clean smell of falling leaves and fading greens; of pollen-heavy goldenrod and foxtails, and all those plants. of long darkened evenings and darkening days and long nights ahead when warmth is the best aroma and even in our electric or gas or other technology age, the scent of warmth calls to mind woodfires and cooked food and family. Too soon the coming cold will be tiresome. The wet, dark evening will be an annoyance. We'll be over it. the plants will die, the greens will brown, and the trees will be bare. But for now, for tonight, we can enjoy the changes in the air. We can cherish the passing of the seasons. We can await the coming hours of darkness knowing that, one way or another, the light will come again. Eventually...

There was some magnificence in today though. It was a beautiful day with a nice breeze. The birds, bees, and butterflies were busily enjoying all factors. It's so nice that the small creatures of nature appreciate the work that I (and mostly my friend) put into creating a place for them. It is also "nice" that I can sit at my desk and look out my door or window and see them going about their lives, adding their own color to the patchwork and their own movements to nature's dance. I saw the little white butterflies that we called cabbage moths playing tag or chase, whooshing up an ascending breeze and drifting downward when it passes. They chased one another through the flower beds and across the yard for I don't know how long. It made me laugh. The magickal highlight today wasn't the white wingers playing tag together though.  The highlight of the day was a single monarch butterfly. This monarch, which looked to be as large as my hand, cruised in the center of...

İ came outside to enjoy the pleasant night, and hoping to perhaps see some of the fireworks I can hear so clearly. As i step out my door, and sit in my chair, I see, just above the treeline, the crescent moon. İ hear the pops and the bangs and the booms from all sides. İt sounds as if the village of Bethel is reenacting war between the north and south, with occasional rat-a-tats rat-a-tats from the 'far' east. All the way down the hill maybe. İ see no flashes of light from any of these noises, not even the ones that rattle my window glass. Through all the noise, the moon remains. Patient, waiting, silent. There. And the night is blessed

I hear the peepers tonight, and the little green frogs that hide in the grass, and the groggy frogs from the flat topped roofs across the street. In the trees between the main street houses and the Union St houses I hear many chattering insects. It sounds as if the treetops may be being used as pillows by an invisible giant. While he may not be seen, he can certainly be heard. He is snoring, and the sound is reverberated through the treetops. I don't know if it's different species of cicadas, or different sexes, but one group is the murmuring breath in, and then I hear the buzzing exhale until it finally peters out. The quiet mumble again, and then the loud breathy buzz. It may be that there are Other insects - grasshoppers, katydids, mantises - that I no longer recognize easily. Bats are zipping and dipping around, as fast as a blink. Black shadow's against an orange sky. Occasionally two will dance together for a moment before vanishing. Yes, nightfall is a ...

It's been a grayish rainish day today and now that night is creeping in, the sunlight has taken on a misty mystic haze of almost-but-not-quite-a-rainbow light. The air glows like golden dust. The sun is behind the trees now. The trees are haloed in the diffused light. Not quite colors quiver as leaves tremble. Along the alley, a long lazy ray of white light makes its way down the pavement, perfectly placed evenly with the edges. At those edges, where the light meets the grass, the color blossoms into golden fizz, dancing above the ground. I reach for my phone, my only camera, and try to capture this ethereal moment that was already fading. I cannot, of course. The magic is beyond both my skill and the phone cameras abilities. I hope my words have helped you to see it. A slice of time such as this is meant to be shared,and i am sharing it with you.

It's an eerie night out here tonight on my porch. The frogs are there, and The crickets, and the locusts, but there's something different. The night sky glowers pink-orange. . Not really strange, because there are pink street lights beyond The trees, but it's not The usual color, even when clouds are hanging low. There are strange Shadows flickering throughout the yard. In the flower beds right in front of me. Along the front of the building on the left side of the yard. On The cars in The parking lot to my right. The Shadow's wander The alley and appear from behind and alongside the houses. They peek. They scamper. They scurry from here to there. Lights and reflections wink and blink. Things move. Things rock, wiggle, twitch. The wind blows gently but not unusually. It seems a night like many others. And yet. The night choir sings on and on. The pink sky outlines the trees clearly. And Shadows creep across the street and dart through the yard. It may be The...

The push begins from deep within The bands begin to tighten Pushing in and shoving out Throbbing with each breath It grows with sound and sight and light And heartbeats make it quicken The headache from hell Is really doing well Like the parasite it is It grows and devours All my waking hours And makes me quite a drag. Useless gutless log of pain Wondering when it all will end Wondering what relief is And where and why is it not mine? Day three this week and no end in sight Migraine my pain my life

Here is a little slice of my life for yall. My indulgence for myself this month was 2 books on the PNW, the setting of most of my (full length) stories. A book about the flora and fauna and the geology of the area. The other was an adult coloring book of the same. Do you know they don't have fireflies as we know them throughout that region? I'm so glad I researched that before I included them in a pastoral scene! I really was looking to see when they appear there, being that region is north of me, and happily saved myself from an inaccuracy. (So happy!) Anyway, it made me think since so many of my stories are in that setting, I needed a good reference book at hand. (Google leads me down too many rabbit holes.) I thought the coloring book would help me become more familiar with the wildlife especially if I use the pictures in the other book as guidelines. Easier for descriptions and environments and other details. So, I ordered the books. Now, you may know I have a granddaughter...

wow the drive home was almost as strange as the drive in. There was so much water on the road, everything was mirrored, almost perfectly. You could read the letters on the road signs reflected in the roads.It was eerie, driving exactly between up-right world and upside-down world. That Stephen King fog ate away the barriers between worlds.

I hear two frogs speaking to one another, one with a deep somber bass, the other a flippity alto. I think they are flirting. I hear Leaves whispering and quiet jingling that tells me of a breeze; a breath. I hear buzzing or humming and I cannot tell if it is the vapor lights thrumming, or a preview of the expected cicadas. I hear voices from other porches and sidewalks. Sounds are low tonight, and very near. Rain is coming to a place near me.

The man was sweating lightly, feeling trembly. He remembered. He remembered.        He had been walking from the shop to the farm, where his son was to bring him his lunch. His wife always wanted him to have something fresh, and since he liked her cooking, that was fine. He never knew what combination of his children would show up, and he usually made bets with himself on who and how many it would be. Since school was back in session, it was usually just one or two of the older boys. He had stopped to check out the balsams – something wasn’t looking right about the three year olds. He didn’t see anything – no insects or growths, and he made a note to have Jamie or Jon to check the soil. They may have been placed too closely, now that they had grown and spread out. They didn’t look crowded, but you couldn’t a;ways tell by looks. Ne bent a needle, and put it to his nose, then grimaced at the sharpness the scent sent through him. Oh well. He’d best get to the office at ...

He opened his eyes and they looked out at the nighttime darkness of a cozy room, but he didn’t even see that. The image before him was that of a bridge. The most beautiful, unrealistic bridge he’d ever seen. A fairy bridge. Made of lights, colors, and threads. And he had seen it before. He had run from it before. That night… He steadied himself in his mind. No more running. Besides, what was frightening about a bridge? Even an unworldly one? Even one created by fairies and woven by spiders with spider-thread? Ones that caught the silver-and-gold light and turned it to dancing rainbows of dancing color? He looked the bridge over carefully, in his mind. He had seen pictures of bridges built that way, he knew with certainty. Huge steel behemoths, towering over waters, the bridging held up by what looked to be fine dainty fibers but were actually metallic cables somehow spun together to bear great weight, but with flexibility. He thought maybe he had actually seen one, without the colors a...

Let me tell you about my carventure today. It was great fun, as it always is, when I set out on my own, in my trusty rusty automobile. First, I had to remove the blankets draped over the window that won't close. We had hella storms over the weekend and winds and tornado warnings and all the good stuff as kitten-cub March roared it's way out as a full grown bull-mad lion. So I had protected the car and contents as best I could. All that had to be undone before I could go anywhere. Blankets on the windows tend to limit the driver's ability to see out, and that's not really good in gray-day situations. (Although it wasn't actually raining by then.) Next I needed gas. Well, my knees have been bad all week, and, it was, in fact, for my knees that I was going out, so I went to the gas station here in town -- hometown tradition; Wichard's -- where they will pump the gas without having to be informed of a disabled person's presence. We're just like normal people...

Sitting on my porch listening to the rain. Watching the water dance in the streetlights. İ hear the birds stirring and waking on this damp and probably dreary morning. They seem to be complaining as vigorously as the "good morning sunshine" people do. İ smell coffee brewing. Been smelling it for about a half hour now. Lovely strong and warm. İ smell it most mornings when I'm out (or have my window open) at this time. İ like to think it is from the coffee shop up on the corner. They open at 6 weekdays, i think, so maybe they start brewing early for themselves. İt could be a going to work neighbor, of course, although i don't know of any who are up and about quite so early. İt is good to sit here in the Outdoor. Too bad it's not quite warm enough to sit with bare feet on the wet wood. That connection would feel so completing. Completion is what I need to earn my rest, i believe, and it has eluded me for all this night and the day before. İ am weary of the incompleti...