Balance

I often feel like I am walking on the edge, not deliberately, but just because that's where I feel like I am. I work actively not to fall off the edge. Sometimes I forget that's where I am and I walk nimbly and safely. But sometimes I am reminded of how close to the edge I am.

And I fear I will lose my balance and slip through the cracks. So far I have kept my balance and mostly avoided this catastrophe. But not without a great deal of help and support.

It occurs to me now that maybe my fear of falling is holding me back.  

(Balance: the seventh verb of my 52 Verbs project.)

Sparkling Ordinary Moments

I worked on this last night. I knew I wanted to do something with this photo when I uploaded it to my computer a month ago. All yesterday afternoon I thought about what I might want to say. I was going in the direction of "when trouble comes" but the picture ended up wanting something else! Sometimes my words come first and I go looking for a photo to fit the words. This time around, the photo came first and I had to work a bit to get to the word part.

This "thang" speaks of noticing the seemingly unimportant ordinary moments. It is one of my traits that I often delight in the simplest things. I think it runs in my genes. There are others in my family who are very much like me in this aspect (or perhaps it is I who am like them, since they are older than me).

I can't find the words for my "thangs" if I don't have time to for contemplation and slow movement in my life.

Tyler's Tree: February

I took this earlier in the month, the weekend of February 8th, which means it was about a month from the last time I took photos of his tree. What I notice (my verb for week before last, I believe) is that Tyler's tree seems to be a bit slower than the other trees we planted. One of the other rain trees had a small green leaf shooting out from its stem. Tyler's tree is almost too thin to cast a shadow! I have high hopes that it will blossom soon, that maybe when March rolls around, there will be something more than a stick to photograph.

I saw this quote today in the comments section of a blog I read:

"Without your wounds, where would your power be? It is your melancholy that makes your low voice tremble into the hearts of men. The very angels, themselves, cannot persuade the wretched and blundering children of this world as can one human being, broken on the wheels of living. In Love's service, only wounded soldiers can serve." -- Thornton Wilder

I like it.

Trinkets

My strange collection of meaningful things: two angel heads, a guardian angel chotchkie, a candle, a pebble from my son's grave and the three cherubs reminding me that joy, though sometimes deeply hidden, is ever present.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Rain on my Parade

It has been raining almost the entire time we have been here. I get out sporadically when the rain is not falling.

I got out yesterday and went to the library. A spam comment slipped through the Blogger
filter so I have temporarily reactivated the word verification thing.


After the library I stopped at the cemetery. It was drizzling rain. We pass the cemetery often when we are here but I needed to stop in for a few minutes. I was back in the truck when "the bottom fell out" and so I joined with the clouds in shedding tears. My grief does not consume my every moment but I do not push down my grief when it comes to the surface. I feel it and I go on.

When I got back to the house it was not raining so I donned a quite fashionable green raincoat of my husband's and my rubber rain boots and went out to the woods to try and catch raindrops with my big camera.


Parts of my trail were flooded over and I had a good time sloshing through the water.


Fortunately the rain did not fall again while I was out.


I believe this is my favorite photo of the day. I love the reflections in the water.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Peace, Joy, Love, and an English Walnut

I got the brilliant idea to write stuff on small rocks. I mean, how hard could it be? Depends on how smooth your rock is (see "love")!

I think it would be neat to do a bunch of these and put them in a pottery bowl or something.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Hearts Are Hurting

I really kind of wanted to have postcards made of this one and to send it out to several of my friends around the country for Valentine's Day but I never did it.

In other news, today is my birthday! I am grateful to have been given another year of life.

I also have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off next week due to Mardi Gras! We will be leaving town to go to the country for several days of quiet relaxation. Yay!

And I remain committed to the idea of slowing down and noticing people around me and being kinder than necessary--to being "salt and light" in my corner of the world, as best I can be.

(My contribution to Gallery 42 of the 52 Photos Project, Hearts)

52 Verbs, Week 5 and 6: Admit and Permit

This project is not working out like I imagined it in my head. I thought I'd be doing some kind of art work using the verbs but so far, that has not really happened. I'd also like to complain about how I keep pulling hard verbs!

When I first thought about the verb admit, I thought of it in terms of confession, as if I'd have to be telling all my secrets or something. But in thinking further, I thought of the things I admit into my life.

Happiness was what I admitted into my life for a fleeting moment last Sunday when we were getting ready to leave the country to come home. Things are slower there, less stressful, simpler. But happiness (not to be confused with joy, which to me, is a much richer feeling) is fleeting.

But I've also admitted some problems into my life. I've done this to myself. There are some things I could do to make it better. They are difficult things. I will admit: I am struggling with setting boundaries. Things that other people take for granted about setting boundaries, I can not do. And my inability is costing me, and causing problems in my everyday life.

Funny how Mindy just wrote about boundaries--"boundaries that you set yourself can be good and healthy but can hurt. You know it is for the best but it is like carving words into your arms and watching yourself bleed." 

Mindy is not the first person to stress to me the importance of healthy boundaries. And she probably won't be the last.

The other thing she said about boundaries? "Then you decide the blood is not so bad if it will eventually lead to the healing." 

I wish I was past this bump in the road, to the point where the cuts were scars, to the point where I could say I chose healing, but I am not there yet.

Neither am I here, where I feel alive from having chosen to stand my ground, though people tell me things will change if I will just buck up and set the boundaries. It doesn't feel good, thinking you can't do things people tell you can.

On the bright side, Mindy did it and she survived. I know others have too.

Masks

My youngest says FB is one of those masks. That's probably true, much of the time.

But I think of the masks in this quote as being more real, more honestly revealing than what one does on Facebook. More intimate.

Masks are an interesting concept to me. I am aware that I have lots of them. I've discarded a few too. But some are still absolutely necessary. I wonder if others have a repertoire of masks, and are they aware of them?

Also, maybe they aren't always totally deceptive. Maybe they are crafted so as to reveal what we are capable of revealing, while hiding what we can't bear to have seen?

I dunno...



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone