Been tired here, can’t seem to catch timing right And would think I would know, things have a habit of turning differently. Have walked the dogs, mom & aunt have taken the reins Of this particular day and I need to step back. They are happy.
In the darkened theater my friend softly Snores through a needed nap as I watch the Movie she chose An adventure of a drab mouse who Strikes out against the odds to a quiet Place of courage A somewhat silly movie I enjoyed as much For that aspect as the call to charge into ones Life with belief.
Mom and I do errands, always taking The long routes through familiar villages As we like. She speaks of her childhood, her mother's life Then dying young and her father dying younger Of the sugar. To hear my mother talk, to share the tears Of the lost times for asking those gone on We both know.
An old friend and I sip tea and eat And talk in a restaurant surrounded By wet marshes I gaze out the rain streaked windows Across the gray and ochre wetlands, With quiet pleasure.
Up at 4am to drive north, mostly smooth. Listened to old cd's and the songs I had chosen To honor you, Emmy Lou & Ian, strong hands & circles, And songs of winter. Not exactly the season But plenty fine To carry me to family and feasting To carry the sadness, memories, joy Of loving you.
Christmas Eve, which I have spent alone, preparing to leave Very early, heading north. It is quiet and cold here and all is Ready to go. I am feeling simply quiet, not full but not empty either. Just a softness of the evening passing, simply letting time Move me along.
Evening approaches on this date of the year When the day first begins to grow longer. It is warm, I leave to hear the carolling, hold a lit candle aloft At the little white church nearby, to be with some good friends Here, there is a soft drizzle with a good wind which Rouses through the trees, these are the kind of days I like. Ever, miss you.
The longest night of the year, time to reflect On the the darkness we all all go through Me and you. Time tomorrow to welcome back the light, Keeping faith, finding it light in all we see You and me.
And the past is gone. It must be then, while in grief, I am upset for some one who is not there. A friend wrote this but I did need to change a few Words, something to someone. This does define simplistically What grief is. Sometimes it is needed to define what is past that Which does carry the present before seeing where the future can be possible.
Through these wee hours of another day gone And from waking early yesterday morn has My soul wept - In a remembrance only I feel and know- that On yesterday's date you went willingly to be healed Trusting it so. Earlier this eve, friends came by and I cooked for them As I loved doing for you. My heart yearns for you Alone with company.
Four years ago that night we slept alone, Apart but for your ring given into my care To hold dear. A small comfort in that large bed, Waiting, worries for what the morining Would bring you. Alone I sleep still but for an errant cat And for the ring you trusted, a small comfort I hold dear.
Because of this issue I have stayed close to home, a choice I have rarely opted to exercise these Past few years, Choosing to be, BE, just be anywhere but here. Slowly I have elected to be here rather than engulfed in large groups. This weekend, because of this malady, I have been Alone but not so lonely, keeping company painting, Just being here.
Still, I have done enough to make the place presentable To my friends coming in and more, enough that I will not Worry over it. Instead, will enjoy these few precious days and evenings when There is company and conversation and laughter from Sun-up past sun-down.
Since I have been home have spent time with fall chores. They are needed and I do as I can. It isn't enough to keep It all up. Not up and looking great and I do like that, but it is too much To do that and other chores and paint and consequently none gets Done very well.
A friend said, what was it? Oh: We can do what We want. Not only what others want, expect of us. Whoa, what really? I have spent a lifetime doing what I have been Expected to do. Female, maybe, you do thus always. And I did. I did...but now? Why? Only if it settles for me. For me, will it do? If not why do it. This is another Country to learn.
A front overhead, deep lavender clouds Obscure the evening star but not the blaze Along the horizon. Back on this land, the last home we shared, Back still considering next steps. My mom Only gets older. Is it wrong to know I will miss this pine I lean on As much as many of the people met? Ah, what gives Sense of place?
Frankly, I expected to come up on this trip, have Questions answered and a direction determined With solid conviction. Ah well, instead it was one of my more ambivalent Messy trips, oozing quandries, doube and yet I know On one level Being near my mother would be so good for her, and me. As a widowed friend said: DOn't count on anything but death To be final.
The Studio at Line's End Farm is where I paint and try to find some joy again, and some equilibrium, not simple these days. One weblog records thoughts, ideas, methods and mixtures, palettes, observations, actually anything that intrigues me concerning my painting and working in the studio. Another observes only the horse in paintings that I find influential. The last are done for my sanity. All are my opinion only, open to other suggestions.
I will write in red, for my dear, love; who never saw red, not in ink, not in ire.
In 2010, the cold went beyond ten decades, was a century mark of hard winter through the mid-atlantic. For one small household banked by an Eastern Shore river this winter was epochal.
