Help Japan

Help Japan



My Childhood Friend

Watching CNN like god and waiting for Anderson Cooper to tell me no radiation will blow across the Pacific and mutate us here on the coast. I am not ready.
My tears are flowing for the folks in the land of the Rising Sun.
Send $$ to Red Cross if you can.

Ripple

We are all okay here. The tsunami warning sirens started at 5:30 am. We were safe at our house so we did not go to higher ground. We are a quarter block from the beach but near the longest and steepest beach access stairs. So we are up about 50 feet from beach.
I stayed up all night watching the news and am praying for Japan. I lived there for 3 years and love it very much.
Life here on the Oregon coast just got a little more interesting. I know if the earthquake is on our side of the Pacific we would have only 10-15 minutes warning. I never really forget that. The boys and I were ready within a few moments of first siren to hightail it out the door and up the nearest hill on foot. Some of our neighbors took off in their cars and returned later this morning. The waves are still not normal, but no damage in my part of town. Information still coming in from all sources.

I almost posted this photo with the title 'ripple' yesterday before the earthquake hit.

This Is What I Want Today

a nice cup of cocoa and toast. perfection. to hell with the carbs

Mad Men

Just say no! Don't do it! Tender mermaid beware the temptations of the dry world. 

Who Waits For Thee ?

Fly Away

That is my mental state right now - fly away, as in gone.
Too many things to worry about and I don't really feel like worrying any more.
It gets old.
But if I don't worry then no one else will and then the worrisome things will get in the unguarded cracks. It feels like that.
Yesterday let alot in thru the cracks. Snafu's came rolling in like the crazy typhoon winds and howling rain we are having right this minute. (And yes, drips are dripping in thru the roof too. The 60 mph south wind drives the rain under the shingles.)
Just one thing after another went wrong (people, meetings, cars, computer, money and more) and I was laughing it off all day and sort of looking at it in a detached way. Being very witty and glib. But now it is after midnight and I am tired and reality looks alittle different this time of day.
So if I had a glass of wine I could toast to the unforseeables I am unprepared for, because they undoubtedly will come any ole time.
I was a girl scout and the motto is be prepared. but are we ever really? Maybe it is my optimism. Optimism can be like a fancy hat, if you accidentally sit on it it gets crushed. My hat got sat on.  I feel crushed.
I am a survivor though. By morning I will face the new day smiling. And my fancy hat may be a bit askew, but I'm gonna wear it anyway...

Alignment

Woman is a verb,
active and passive.
She cannot miss a curve
on the quickened artery
studded with warnings.
Calculating safe distance
in a resisting world
she travels with the flow,
prismatic and swift,
and considers the advantage
of soft luggage.

         Ethel Fortner
         "Roadability" from Clouds and Keepings

With L•O•V•E To All

Happy Valentines Day my lovelies!
(lips)

The Heartbreaking Beauty of Words

When they ask to see your gods
your book of prayers
show them lines
drawn delicately with veins
on the underside of a bird’s wing
tell them you believe
in giant sycamores mottled
and stark against a winter sky
and in nights so frozen
stars crack open spilling
streams of molten ice to earth
and tell them how you drink
a holy wine of honeysuckle
on a warm spring day
and of the softness
of your mother who never taught you
death was life’s reward
but who believed in the earth
and the sun
and a million, million light years
of being.
''Catechism for a Witch's Child'' by J.L. Stanley
      I read this on the lovely Sea Angels blog and had to stifle a sob that leapt into my throat. The power of simple words strung together astounds me. The tenderness of the human heart is so profound and poignant.

Flying Too Close to the Ground

"Women are angels and when someone breaks our wings we simply continue to fly ... on a broomstick. We are flexible like that ..."

Just a Spoonful of Sugar....

Dancing on the Edge

Oh my, you would not believe how often I have barely made it thru prediciments. Escaped with all intact and lived to tell the tale. Danced on the edge of ruin. Teetered on the edge of the cliff. Looked into the maw of the maelstrom. Sometimes the save was made by my fellow man, sometimes blind luck, sometimes by angels and sometimes by timing or awareness. Not that I have ever deliberately done something stupid (really?). More like I've almost gone over that edge, almost been cut by the double edged sword, almost fallen into the pit. Things like not having enough money for rent or breaking down in the middle of nowhere or driving thru a canyon 1 hour before the flood or getting rid of a crazy hitchhiker who almost burned the house down when I was in childbirth labor or having to drive a pickup truck over a slippery muddy narrow tract by a raging river or sidestepping a rattlesnake in the dusty road or getting lost in Mexico City when I was 15. I thank my lucky stars everyday, I thank you Jesus, I thank you angels, I thank you samaritans and rogue saviors who have appeared out of nowhere. I thank you neighbor and friend and family and windfalls and I even thank the government. You have all saved my you know what at one time or other !

protection I pray continue unabated

Between the Pages

Yesterday I found this lovely old photograph. It fluttered out from between the pages of a book on women and love. On the back it is a very old "The Season's Greetings" card. They were glued together lord knows how very long ago. Once I found a smooshed complete hummingbird between the pages of a heavy art book.
What is the most interesting thing you ever found between the pages of a book?

original photo above and enhanced photo below

Open

KEEPING WATCH
In the morning
When I began to wake,
It happened again.
That feeling
That you, Beloved,
Had stood over me all night
Keeping watch,
That feeling
That as soon as I began to stir
You put Your lips on my forehead
And lit a Holy Lamp
Inside my heart.
by Hafiz
Yes! A lovely new year, like the creamy blank pages of a fresh journal. Like the new soft skin of a baby's cheek. All is ready to be loved and cared for and appreciated. Let nothing dull this new hope and this flying forth into the future. Let the lamp burn bright in my heart. Let this year reach it's full potential for love, wonder and prosperity. Let us be protected and cared for and let us know the path ahead thru the next 12 months is bringing us closer to our goals and dreams.