Trout Lilies and leaving

The trout lilies here are different than the ones where I used to live--white instead of yellow. But I know a place where both coexist at the same time in the same location. It's a waterfall in Canada. If I remember the name, I will post it. They are found at different elevations, which must say something about their habitat requirements.

I am leaving again and will be off-line and incommunicado all or most of the time. I do not know yet when I will return. Until then, enjoy life.

Honoring my Mother

My Mother recently died and we've been cleaning out her house. Many things got thrown out including much of her huge supply of wrapping paper and ribbon, but I nabbed a little and have been wrapping presents with it as a way to honor and remember my mother.

Grocery shopping on the Motorcycle

I took my motorcycle grocery shopping today, for the first time in about 40 years. I got new saddlebags for Christmas, and they each hold one fairly full grocery bag. I didn’t know that until today. It’s been too cold for me to enjoy shopping on the bike.

I had some errands to do and very little time to do them, and we’re going to walk later when biker buddy gets home from work. (Yes, he often works on Saturdays). I got the bike out and my helmet and goggles and attached the saddlebags and rode off to mail off some estate-related lawyerly papers priority mail and then went to the Village Market.

It was sunny and warm and I went in my T-shirt. I locked my helmet and bags every stop. I did my errands and zipped home. More fun than the car, if a little bit more time consuming.

Evening

We walk every day, or at least I do, for my fibromylagia. It was a beautiful spring day today, but I didn't get my walk while the sun was out. Instead, we went down to Lakeshore and walked in the evening, watching the subtle hues of evening shift to night. It was quiet, one of the first warm nights of spring and before all the loud boats ruin the stillness in summer.

Twice, we sat together and soaked in the stillness and beauty of the shifting light. I feel especially close at these times, which feel rarer than I might wish they'd be.

The World Outside my Door

(SPRANG!)

I’ve been frantically hunched over my computer in the dark house all morning and into the afternoon, working on estate-related issues. I hadn’t eaten breakfast or done my morning exercises or showered or dressed and I was getting really hungry. Finally, I took part of my breakfast outside and sat to eat it on the ivy-covered terrace* in the backyard in my pajamas. It was after noon. I watched the cardinal flying in and out of the lilac bush with nesting material and the squirrel chasing a grackle through the spruces. The morning doves are cooing and birds flutter over my head. The little blue –s are flowering, and two more squirrels chase each other through the grass, almost running over my bare toes. One sees me and sits and its haunches staring at me. When I don’t move, it continues nosing around in the grass.

It is a perfectly clear day, the sky a pure blue, the sun warm, the air light and fresh. Spring. The Christmas roses are in flower, the hyacinths, and the brilliant yellow forsythia. Birds are cheeping and squawking and singing. There is a whole world out here that is lost to me when I am inside working. I bring my mail out to open and read in the yard. I am wondering if the blue wave length recommended for SADD is the same wavelength of blue that the sky appears to be. I wish I had time to look it up, but I don’t now.

*Yes, I know English ivy is an invasive alien species, but I didn’t plant it here, and haven’t had time to attempt to eradicate it.

I have trouble seeing the computer screen in the bright sun. There is a way to adjust the brightness of the screen, I understand, but what I don’t understand is how to do it. Nor did I bring a pen and paper to take notes while I work.

For now, the sun and the birds and squirrels and the fresh air are wonderful, but were I to try to work out here, I’d need a table and chairs and “stuff”, pens paper etc.

The mail contains bank statements, my mother’s will, trust statements, life insurance info. All of which need to be attended to ASAP before I leave again for NY, or worse yet, taken with me to deal with there when I will have so much else to do. Now I am getting too hot to work outside. And my lower back is starting to hurt because of the odd position I’m in here on the edge of the ivy terrace. I could move to the shade if I had a card table. I could set up a chair. It occurs to me that there is a card-table-like object in the garage, which I could set up and move about to follow the shade, but I need to do stuff inside, so I will say goodbye to the sweet outdoors and go back in for now.

When I took the Kuder Preference Test[MNT1] in eight grade and other times, the one thing I scored way higher on than anything else was OUTDOORS followed somewhat closely by nature and then science and writing/literary. I love the outdoors and really miss it and real wildness/nature living here in the city.

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[MNT1]Now called the Kuder Occupation Interest Survey

Where are my Bread Crumbs?

SWITCHED! Finally!

I wrote a new poem this morning. It's probably not good enough to ever be posted to AMARYPOEM or Twelve. So I am posting it here.

I just got switched, finally, to the New Blogger, but that may mean everything is all messed up, and I don't have time to fix it. It will have to stay messed up for a while!

I tried publishing this by hitting publish but it only went in as a draft.

Where are my Bread Crumbs?

I thought I’d reached a place of serene understanding,
once for a few hours or days, a loving equilibrium,
at the center of the teeter totter at the peak of Everest,
with the Maiden Tsar and the Baba Yaga perfectly balanced,
floating, bare feet dangling above the sunlit snow.
It was high summer and below, hand in hand, Persephone
and Demeter walked through wheat fields half green
half gold. The sun smiled and I smiled back. No hurricanes
struck for a moment, no tsunamis or draughts or wildfires.
But in the next moment, or day or week, they all hit
at once, flinging me back into the briar patch
in the center of the dark forest with no trail or light
where I still remain, lost, scratched and stuck.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
1st, 4/20/07, 070420

click image to view larger (artwork by me)(I'm an orphan now, at 60!)(Wahn!)

OK, this is the THIRD time I have published this--let me know if you can finally see it!

burnt umber

Helena asks, "When you were a child, which crayon color was your favorite?" and I reply:

"My favorite color as a young child was red and then it switched to green as I got older and loved nature and trees. But I also loved the NAMEs the colors, like "ochre," "burnt umber" and "burnt sienna." What great names. I always had to use burnt umber, burnt sienna and ochre so I drew lots of trees with complex bark, even as a fairly young child!

I also like the names of khaki and ecru!

How about you?

This might call for an art piece or a poem! (If I ever have time to play again!)

I discovered an interesting list of lost crayola colors, including the names of ones that I remember from my childhood!!!

What I am NOT "Reading"

I had purchased a bunch of books on tape at the used bookstore (Books 4 Less) to listen to on the long drive back and forth to visit my mother in the nursing home. The most recent one I had started on, which was quite a long time ago, was Cider House Rules, by John Irving. I was really loving that book. It is a wonderful, fantastic, extremely well-written engaging book--pardon all the superlatives, but I really like it. It is not, however, for everyone. If you are squeamish about medical procedures like abortions, you might not want to read it.

My Mom died and I haven't been driving back and forth as much and the few times I did go, I went with other people. So I decided I would listen to it in the house every morning while I did my exercises. And for a few days, I did. But the tape I was listening to ran out and the next one is not in the box. I think I had them all to begin with. When I was driving back and forth, I would take the next two out of the box and lay them on the passenger seat for ease of insertion while driving. I must have done that and when I arrived home, taken the loose one into the house and done something with them other than put them away. I have NO IDEA where they are. I looked in the car and Where I have some stuff that was waiting for the next trip, but no dice. So I am stuck near the end of the book without the last tape or two. It's a very long book. WAHN!

I am going to start a new book on time while I am exercising, The Maiden King with Robert Bly and someone else, I unfortunately forget who. But I am sad to not be finishing Cider House Rules. I sure hope I find the missing tapes. WAHN!

(I took the Photograph of the old dictionary at The Ella Sharp Museum and Historical Center in Jackson, MI, in the Old School House.) 

"First Light"

Here's the very first picture I took of my brand new granddaughter Sophia Tistephone. She wasn't even four days old yet. Now she is. Today she is.