A New Year of Hope

1. It's over.
2. The last day of the year.
3. It went fast, then not fast enough.
4. The New Year holds hope.
5. Obama.
6. We had the audacity to vote.
7. Now we hold him accountable.
8. We'll hold ourselves accountable too.
9. Hope it works.
10. A New Year for healing.
11. Acts of hope.
12. (Can we say that word enough?)
13. I'll hold you to it.
14. And you will do the same.
15. Because it's not audacious
16. to inaugurate each other,
17. and take an oath:
18. to hold each accountable;
19. to hold each other up;
20. to hold each other.

Wordless Wednesday 31 Dec 2008

more from Wordless Wednesday participants

Photos and Phriends

What a great idea; blog about something positive each day. Check it out here: every day, one good thing

My two dear pals and I made our way through the streets of Portland (Oregon) today snapping shots with our new Nikons. It was a good thing. We are a good thing.

A Quick Note

Today's prompt: If you could be the best in the world at something, what would it be?

For as much as I have invested in my own healing of my personal angst, I sure would like to be less hard on myself. What if we gave Pulitzer prizes for self-endurance? Who would we nominate?

Friday Fill Ins #104

Perhaps it's the distraction of the holidaze, but this is the best I can do today...
Thanks, Heather, for the prompts!

1. I must fly fish as much as possible before I die.
2. You can't stop wondering.
3. I wish I never had to buy Christmas presents again.
4. Journal writing has helped me change my life.
5. I know the song within me by heart.

Booking in Winter

Thanks, Deb, for this trip down memory lane.

Find more at: Booking Through Thursday

What are the most "wintry" books you can think of?

The ones that almost embody Winter?

While I know there are a zillion, wonderful children's books about winter, and winter holidays celebrated in many traditions, the few below are one's I've read and are among my favorites. What else would you add to my library?

A Child's Christmas in Wales by Dylan Thomas

Polar Express by Chris Van Allsburg

I Spy Christmas by Jean Marzollo

The Nativity by Julie Vivas

The Mitten by Jan Brett

Amazing Peace by Maya Angelou, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

Owl Moon by Jane Yolen

Wordless Wednesday - Robin in Winter

Light is Returning

This is a song we sing each Winter Solstice (and whenever else we feel like it too!)

Light is returning

Even though this is the darkest hour

No one can hold back the dawn

Let's keep it burning

Let's keep the light of hope alive

Make safe our journey through the storm

One planet is turning

Circles on her path around the Sun

Earth Mother is calling her children home

(lyrics by Charlie Murphy)

Leaning Into Christmas

As much as I can bitch about the holidaze and list all the issues I have with them, I've decided it might be healthier for me to lean into them this year - instead of trying to control how everyone else in my world does them. Let's face it; Christmas is really about intimacy and I don't know a soul who doesn't struggle with that! Yeah, shopping is a pain and all the commercialism is counter-intuitive, but many of the rituals we perform year after year can actually ground us in this chaotic time. Trust me; this is a stretch for me. I fight this season like a baby in a breach birth! ("What do you mean I have to go head first!") Thanks, Diane, for this poetic idea!

1. I hate Christmas.
2. But I still cry at songs about a birth
3. Not mine.
4. The baby Jesus's.
5. Though it's just a story
6. I still cry.
7. I play those songs on the piano
8. And sing along with Bing
9 And Andy
10. And church ladies everywhere, I suppose.
11. Music is the reason for the season.
12. Pagan songs.
13. Kwanza songs.
14. Dradle songs.
15. I sing them all.
16. I'm so P.C.
17. But the ones that make me cry
18. Are still about the baby Jesus.
19. So why do I hate Christmas?
20. Because I'm afraid.
21. Afraid it will cost too much
22. Even though I don't live under a bridge.
23. I'm afraid.
24. Afraid I'll be cranky
25. When everybody else is jolly-ole-saint-Nicholas-ing.
26. I'll be Scrooge
27 And see ghosts.
28. Or my shadow side.
29. But another thing?
30 I really love the cookies
31. And stocking stuffers.
32. And wrapping the presents.
33. I'm very creative.
34. Christmas is a creative time.
35. It creates a lot of fuss.
36. Confusion.
37. Tantrums.
38. This year
39. I'm giving up tantrums.
40. Santa may not notice
41. But my loved ones will.
42. If only for a day.
43. I won't be naughty.
44. I will be nice.
45. Like sugar and spice.

Friday Fill-ins

Janet is up for some holiday cheer with this one!

1. Said the night wind to the little lamb, "Could you ask that kid to quit banging on his drum? He'll wake the baby!"
2. The first Noel, the angel did say, "I'll do my best to keep Herod away!"
3. Children are sledding, Over the hills and everywhere.
4. It came upon the midnight clear, that Santa drank eggnog then chased it with beer!
5. Hey, Scrooge; Let your heart be light.
6. And the thing that will make them ring is the carol that you sing in the shower, ding-aling!
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to another good nights sleep, tomorrow my plans include staying warm in case the weather forecast is correct, and Sunday, blow off some cabin fever!

Booking Treats

Thursdays are fun thanks to Deb at: http://btt2.wordpress.com/

What is the best book you ever bought for yourself?

Given I majored in English, I bought a lot of books in college, though most of them were by male authors. When I bought Kate Chopin's The Awakening for my American Lit. class, I thought I had died and gone to heaven; finally, a novel by a woman I could relate to. Immediately, I checked out both volumes of her short stories from the University Library and wrote a paper which I would later give to my mother for Christmas. (It may be the best Christmas present I've ever given too!) Find more here: http://www.katechopin.org/

And, why? What made it the best? What made it so special?

Kate Chopin explored edges of her life and of being a woman at the turn of the century that spoke to this young college student in 1983! It's one of the only books I did not re-sell at the campus bookstore (along with the huge volume of Shakespeare's Complete Works that I've schlepped around all these years.)

Wordless Wednesday - Bah Humbug!

Photo courtesy of : http://nekkedlizardadventures.typepad.com/my_weblog/2008/12/let-there-be-lights-.html

More Wordles Wednesday here: http://www.wordlesswednesday.com/

Winter Critters

Northern Pygmy Owl

White Tailed Deer

Mountain Chickadee

It's winter here in Portland; I've been in all day, wishing I was out taking photographs like these. For now, I'm enjoy them - and more - at: http://northwestnaturalmoments.blogspot.com/.

Friday Fill-ins #102

1. I don't see my friends enough!

2. My mental health; it's dependent on being in the great outdoors! .

3. I'm ready for visitors to my blog :)

4. Morning coffee is one of my favorite smells.

5. The oldest ornament I have is gone.

6. Take some voices mix it all together and you have a choir.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to a white elephant party, tomorrow my plans include exercise, and Sunday, I want to be creative!
Posted by Janet at Links to this post

Booking Through Thursday - Time for Reading

Find more great "booking" questions here: Booking Through Thursday

1. Do you get to read as much as you WANT to read?
Maybe a better question is what keeps me from reading more? The dishes and taking the garbage out; laundry and putting groceries away. Tending to my blog...feeding the dog...being a hog...I'll make this short; I want to head to bed early and finish that book laying face down on my nightstand!

2. If you had (magically) more time to read–what would you read? Something educational? Classic? Comfort Reading? Escapism? Magazines?
I'd go to Powells bookstore here in Portland and set up camp and live there among the stacks and I'd take something to write in - or maybe my blog - to share with all of you what it was like to have every bit of print material a person could ever fantasize about in one's lifetime. (Check them out at: http://www.powells.com/ )

Wordless Wednesday -November Full Moon

Find Wordless Wednesday here!

Friday Fill-in #101

1. Snow brings out the kid in all!

2. I'm looking forward to growing my blog.

3. Suboro's is the best sushi in Portland ever!

4. One of my favorite old tv shows is

Gilligan's Island because my little brother and I

pretended I was the Skipper and he was my "little buddy."

5. I'm done with cassette tapes.

6. The most enjoyable thing around the holidays is going to a movie and belly laughing with my pals Terri and Nan!

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to my partner coming home from work tomorrow my plans include finishing a piece of writing to share with my writing group and Sunday, I want to sleep late and read in bed.

Booking through Thursday - Authors to Note

Today’s Booking Through Thursday post asks you about your favorite (and least favorite) authors!

1. Do you have a favorite author?

Just one? I guess if I was stranded for the rest of my life with only one author to read, I'd take James David Duncan with me because I don't think I would grow tired of reading him.

2. Have you read everything he or she has written?

Yes, though I didn't finish The Brothers K....yet.

3. Did you LIKE everything?

Pretty much; he's a writer I like to read for his skill over his content (which is why I haven't finished Brothers K.)

4. How about a least favorite author?

Darn near everything I read in the first half of my American Literature class in college.

5. An author you wanted to like, but didn’t?

Everytime I see a Louise Erdich novel I think I need to give her another chance, but even the bargain books at Goodwill quench my temptation.

Wordless Wednesday

Find Wordless Wednesday here!

A January Poem

Children sled in the park
on a no-school day;
a white, winter, jewel day.

Perched on a branch
a squirrel gnaws a chestnut;
scampering down again and again
she’ll burrow in the snow
for another, scattered by autumn raking.

A trellis, her ladder
her paws, mittened hands –
like school girls lifting crudely made snow balls
to their frozen faces
she cups the nut, gnashing her sharp teeth
into the meat,
shell bits descending

Her tail, now a scarf
flutters fringe around tiny ears;
Nut-nougat full,
her golden-orange fleece belly
blazes against the winter backdrop

Later, peeling a tangerine at the sink
Juice runs down my sleeve
Splashing squirrel-gold-orange
On snow-white porcelain.

Green Chair

Beside the green chair, where she sits in solitude overlooking the garden that calls for her presence, is a bookshelf which holds her collection of sacred texts: her Girl Scout Handbook; an autographed copy of Where the Red Fern Grows; a collection of Anne Sexton’s poetry – a graduation gift from her favorite English teacher in high school. This bookshelf holds a collection for recovery, Shakespeare’s Complete Works and a photo album from a previous life.

Intentionally small, when she gets around to dusting and re-shelving, she’ll sort through her titles and part with one or two: generally to make room for new editions that better feed her soul. “Should someone write my eulogy based on the titles on these shelves,” she thought, “it might reflect an interesting course.”

What was she reading at the time of her departure? What was the first book she ever read? What title had the most influence on her life as an adolescent? As a mom; a daughter; a friend? What title made her laugh? Made her stretch? Pissed her off?

What if, when we die, our friends and family gather at our bookshelves as a way of celebrating our efforts at navigating this lifetime and select one as a token of their loved one? Which books would we will to each other and why?

She knew that the words of others were the balms and salves that helped her heal and traverse a common journey. Perhaps some of her own writing should be archived here. The rest, she would take with her. Her ashes mixed with the ashes of her journals - scattered somewhere she loved to be - on a favorite river, probably.

Spongeblog

I gave brief consideration to naming this cyber adventure Spongeblog, but that clever idea has been abandoned. Greenchair is more fitting - particularly as we enter the dark months of the year. My chair sits in a cozy nook in my bedroom, overlooking the garden which remains fallow while I read and write and snooze away the long, rainy, winter days. Here in the Pacific Northwest, winter is dark and wet and we wonder if Spring will ever return. While we long to be in our gardens, some of us do our finest cultivating while all curled up and snuggled in with good books and our journals.