Happy New Year!

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it except sitting in a corner by myself with a little book." -- Thomas a Kempis


Every failure I've ever had is because I said yes when I should have said no.

One of the most time consuming things is to have an enemy.

"You know you're getting old when you stoop down to tie your shoes and wonder what else you can do while you're down there."--George Burns


"I have enough money to last me the rest of my life--unless I buy something." --Jackie Mason

"The best way out is always through." -- Robert Frost
Amen and Amen

Richard and I have enjoyed almost 2 whole weeks of time off from work for the holidays. What a great time it has been, with time to leisure over the morning paper together every morning, to take the boat out (twice) and kayak one early Sunday morning....to curl up with Catherine and watch her favorite cartoons, work out in the yard, tidy the house. Tonight, New Year's Eve, 2007, we have bonfire ready (just need a match) and champagne on ice and a chocolate fondue and we'll have a perfect New Year's toast.

Here are a couple pictures of our fishing trip last week.

Another Truth

Nothing stands out so conspicuously, or remains so firmly fixed in the memory, as something which you have blundered. --- Cicero

Catherine and Mya enjoying the holidays!

It's starting to look a lot like Christmas!

Tis the season of hectic, frenetic baking, shopping, decorating, gift wrapping, card sending, holiday parties, school pagaents and checking our lists! Our house is lit up with ourdoor lights, nativity scenes are on the tabletop (except for baby Jesus) our door is wrapped in garland and bows; our tree is small this year but we let Catherine manage the ornament hanging and it is a lovely tree indeed-- just small enough for her to manage topping with a great big golden star.

Richard and I decided to scale back our shopping budget a bit this year as it's so easy to get carried away and stressed out with finding just-right-gift for everyone. "Everyone" on our list meant about 40 people. So this year it's down to about 20, a much more managable size. I believe I can enjoy the season without cramming too much spending, too much worrying, too much standing in line at check-out counters. I have, though, enjoyed more baking and telling Christmas stories at bedtime to my precious little one. We've watched Charlie Brown's Christmas and the Polar Express. We've talked about how little some less fortunate people have and how blessed we are to have what we have, to be grateful for our family and our time together---THAT's what's it's really about, right?

Catherine donned her chef's hat and apron the other night and we made a round of Christmas cookies--Round One of Four or Five Rounds of cookie baking. Here's her picture during Round One. We spilled colored sugar all over the place but Dylan (our Pekingnese dog) was right there cleaning up after us.

An autumn day

I love autumn mornings when the red and yellow leaves lie along on the creek and practically cover the water from bank to bank. I love to lay on the leafy ground in splendid isolation and look up into the nearly bare tree limbs and watch the final leaves release and fall, spinning slowly like feathers down through the indigo sky. Pale orange, red and brown oak and maples leaves lay scattered on the dewy grass. When I stand upright again, I see my shadow cast on the leaf-strewn grass like a stain.
I believe that each leaf that falls is a mark from the thumb of God.

Grief is a haunting

If you have ever lost someone you truly loved, no matter how many years pass by the loss remains a bitter ache. I have never entirely found peace about my loss and in my heart there has always been a little bit of war still waging all these years later. Grief is a haunting. You count days, then months, then years. You count birthdays and anniversaries but you agonize a little less with each passing event. Just a little, mind you. My loved one is a ghost that haunts me still, manifesting himself in the form of crushing despair-- less a poetic melancholy and more like the grim aftermath of a brutal beating and I'm still amazed to have survived. I still miss him, all these decades later, and it still hurts sometimes like it happened yesterday. He remains forever young as I continue to age; he will always be thirty. A great deal of who I am stayed back there, with him, in 1986. Now, later in life I can conclude an inevitable sense of failure, an overwhelming gloom in the knowledge that days, months and years, f ew that we had--are done and gone forever. But back then I simply exulted in the false but glorious knowldge that life would be exactly that way from thereon. I wasn't different from anybody else in that sense. I took youth, and the gifts I had as a special pact from God. Endings were not endings. Even now, in middle age, he recurs..like a fragrance. Have you ever pushed your nose into a fresh blossom and breathed deeply of the heavenly scent inside? My precious memories of that time with him are like that, only the flower of memory is withering and dry like the skin on the back of my hand. The scent is faded, different-- but it's still there and the blossom of those memories are pressed like a prom-corsage between the pages of my mind.

A piece of me has been lost and will never be recovered. It went away with him so long ago. It is something (not just someone) fatal piercing my life forever. I've learned to never squander those moments in the life I have now. I value them like collectors and their rare coins, only more. Much more. Coins are just that, coins. My life before is broken fragments and the memories are all I have; more precious than the oldest, rarest coin. Unlike a drop of blood in a bowl of milk they are still more persistent, like a stone thrown into a water as still and calm as a mirror.

What I've learned: Let yourself be happy and content, in case that what you have is all you will ever have. Don't lose what is precious to you in ingnorance and delusion. And anger is a poison and it will rise from you like smoke from a fire if you let it. Don't covet something else when what you have is all you need. I have chosen to walk further into the life given to me instead of staying paralized by my sadness and grief. What I lost has been given back to me, in another form and wrapped in a different parcel but even more precious than I could have ever dreamed possible. When you chose to go on, walk a new path-- even when you believe your life destroyed, and take steps of faith forward to the unknown and unchartered. You will find new-found pleasures you never knew could exist; The fragile dogwood, sumac and redbud that wither after the first frost, grim as death--soon push forward with new growth and vibrant color, inviting a new beginning. The stars will be sprayed once again across the indigo sky and the dew will glisten again on the apple-green grass.

If you were to die tomorrow, don't spend your last day cursing God but praise nature and the wonderous creation He gave us to set our eyes upon every day. When all you've loved and lost is seemingly gone forever, let what you held in your hand for a short while become sweeter in the mind; do not let go but hold on even tighter. Take your losses as no more than flesh wounds and walk on. Love what is left like there is no tomororrow. Yes, loss is damn painful but how can we experience joy if not given the purest moments of love, peace and serenity?

Grief still haunts me and will haunt me until I die but I have been given much more than I've lost and I chose to plant new seeds and watch them grow and when I'm gone the flowers of those seeds will leave their scent for others after me.

Life is not measured by the breaths we take but by the moments that take our breath away

Memory is one of the strongest intoxicants. There have been occasions when I've become drunk-like when the past sweeps over me like stinging sheets of windblown rain. My memories rush over me with the velocity of heartbreak. I have, for that matter we all have all lost someone we have loved; life is all about love and the loss of love-- or more accurately the loss of people we love and the people that have loved us and the world always seems poorer for their absence. I have a problem aceding to the fairness of that; not that I have a choice.

I cannot decide whether it is an illness or a sin, the need to write things down; to sprinkle a piece of paper with inked letters which bleed from my heart and not the pen I hold so fiercly. Are the words captured or imprisoned when I make them travel from mind to keyboard, or from heart to paper? Memories shift over time, very similar to ink when dampness blurs their images on paper....therein lies my purpose. When I am gone, who will tell my story? Who will see my footsteps, remember the sound of my laughter? Writing a thing down fixes it in place as surely as wallpaper on the kitchen wall. Every bit as stationary, flat and still and harmless. Writing memorializes a momentary line of thought as it if were final.

Sometimes the strength of certain memories nearly knock me down with their force and I can hardly stand against the brunt of it, like walking full force into gale winds. They take my breath away. I must write now, I must mark these moments of my life, in ink or more frequently hammered on keybaord before I turn into an antique and the memories fade and blur. This in the hope that my effort will be worthwhile, that future generations of my family will take a piece of me, a fragment of my life and retell it and use it to flavor their lives like spices sprinkled in good stew.

A life is full of moments, good and bad, important and boring. I have found that the most important moments never fade from your memory and that you replay them in your mind over and over like a an old 45 record. They stand proof against time. Changeless and pure, authentic in ways impossible for anybody to change, ever.

We live in a broken world and everyone suffers. Our lives fall away into history--a cliche: like sands through an hourglass-- and much of who we are and what we accomplished will die when we die. Indeed, the fleeting nature of our instantaneous lives dictates that we pass through the land as briefly as water passes over the boulders in a canyon river.

Words I Live By

"Nulle Dies Sine Linea"
(Latin for "write every day!")

Some thoughts that can shape your future

Love is worth the risk of loss.

Anger harms no one more than he who harbors it.

Bitterness and true happiness are choices that we make, not conditions that fall upon us from the hands of fate.

Peace is to be found in the acceptance of things that we are unable to change.

Friends and family are the Blood Of Life.

The purpose of existence is caring and commitment.

Autumn Days and Crisp, Smoky Evenings

Hard to believe it's been a month since I've posted anything but it's representative of the little time I've had "left over" from my daily demands of work and family. It has been a great month, I think one of my favorite times of year, second only to Spring and new flower blossoms, new life. Fall is crisp and cool and the crunch of acorns underfoot, the golden colors of autumn's foliage....windows sprung open, migratory birds at the backyard feeders, football and holiday commercials on tv. Wait--it's not even Thanksgiving and Christmas commercials are on tv already?! What's with that? The commercialization of the holidays does in fact hit us earlier and earlier each year, an effort by the mega-stores to make more and more of (our) money!

Last night at dusk Richard, Catherine and I went to the boat ramp near our home and watched the sun go down over the water while Richard threw his cast net. My favorite Egret came for a visit and shyly stood near by waiting for handouts. The first two mullet went to him and then the next two went to a hungry swarm of feral cats that materialized out of the woods near the bank of the creek. Here are a couple pictures I took--not so great because the sun was almost all the way down and it was dark for good photography without a tripod.

I wanted to take the kayak out this weekend but was too lazy to get my aging body off our comfortable pillow-top mattress in time. Richard went out Friday afternoon and atested to the beauty of the dieing afternoon sun as it slipped beyond the marsh's grassy reeds where he paddled and fly-fished alone.

Autumn is:

Brown leather gloves and a wooly scarf

The crunch of acorns under my feet

The scent of clove and cinnamon

A good curl-up-with-an-afghan novel

Wooly socks

Good, red wine

Walks on leaf-strewn paths through the woods

Smoke curling from chimney tops

Pinecones

Brunswick Stew

Warm oatmeal with raisins and brown sugar

The smoky fog-breath swirling from my mouth in the cool of the morning

Football weekends

Fall Festivals/Carnival lights

An October visit to beautiful Minnesota farm country

Home-made apple pie

Pumpkin carving and Trick-Or-Treaters

A November full of birthdays

Scented candles

A crackling fire and roasting marshmellows

Thanksgiving turkey, mashed potoatoes and cranberries!

Mmmm....lots of good things to enjoy, treasure and be thankful for!

Annual Fall Visit to Minnesota for Mom's Birthday

Catherine and I recently returned from our annual fall visit to Minnesota. Here are some of my favorite pictures from that trip!

Haulover Creek--Again!

This morning Richard woke me up before dawn to drive north of Jacksonville for a kayaking trip down Haulover Creek, a place we visit frequently. It's also the same place we went two weeks ago for the Coastal Clean Up. This time we were dismayed to find new trash littering the spot upon our arrival. Vowing to pick it up upon our return, I sprayed myself with bug repellent and pushed off while the sun was still peeking up over the horizon. What a beautiful morning it was, and well worth leaving our comfortable bed so early in the morning on a day off!

I led the way as Richard usually lags behind for the most part, casting his line out every few minutes. Actually, he usually has a minimum of two fishing poles along and he keeps busy with baiting up and casting while keeping his kayaking from coasting into the reeds. I paddle slowly but steadily and I end up for the most part on my own with only a whistle or cell phone to call him in case of trouble. I take countless pictures and watch for birds, stopping only to change lenses or take a sip of refreshing water. It was very quiet and peaceful that morning and I watched as the sky change colors as the sun rose higher in the sky. I saw a large blue crab swimming along beside my kayak and osprey and egret flying overhead as well as a large turkey vulture watching me from high in a tree, on his perch. To those of you viewing my blog from time to time, this is probably getting a little redundant but this is what I love most, being outdoors, preferably on my kayak with my husband nearby and the quiet of nature around me and birds singing and flying overhead. It's simply the best way to spend a morning away from all the hustle and bustle of our busy lives. We were back home shortly after the kids got up, and after a refreshing shower I read the Sunday paper while my pictures downloaded from the camera to this laptop. I hope you enjoy today's pictures.

Oh, and I did remember to pick up the trash at the landing site at Haulover Creekupon our return. It was yucky and stinky but we put it in the truck and hauled it home. Haulover Creek's landing was much prettier when we left than when we arrived. I wish people that visit that site would be more responsible and leave it the way it was when they came instead of throwing their beer bottles and empty Doritos bags on the ground! Shame on you whoever you are.

Their Eyes Were Watching God

I'm currently reading this book and I recommend it for everyone. Halle Berry stars in the movie version. It is a classic first published in 1937 that was written in only seven weeks by author Zora Neale Hurston. It awakens the imagination and enlarges our humanity. It offers harrowing insights that somehow console and comfort us at the same time. Read it!

"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountains wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands." --Zora Neaole Hurston in Dust Racks on a Road. Those words she worte remind me of my doomed second marriage and the victory I feel now, happily bethrothed forever to the sweetest man on Earth, my protector....Richard.

God has been watching over ME and I am thankful.

Coastal Clean Up Day

Richard volunteered us for the Coastal Clean Up Day Saturday. We woke early and drove to Haulover Creek, one of multiple sites designated as clean up sites. Volunteers braved snakes, spiders, gnats and the heat to pick up the trash deposited by people that don't give a damn about Mother Earth. We arrived and immediately put on plastic gloves and filled trash bags of everything from beer bottles (too many to count) to old fishing line. By mid morning Haulover Creek was again prestine and the 8 of us volunteers posed proudly by a roadside pile of tires and trash bags. The total haul from all the coastal clean up sites was 5500 pounds not counting about 100 tires. Sadly, Richard and Michael went back to the same site this morning around dawn and found that it had already been spoiled with new trash! They launched the kayaks and enjoyed a great paddle down the winding creek, catching several fish, though they threw them all back. Here are some of the pictures I took yesterday.