Cath, etc.

The Gesture

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I placed my wrists at my laptop, positioning them just so, readying my fingers to form a sentence.

And by placing them, I mean I lifted my forearms, settled the inside of my wrists against their customary resting place, and watched my knuckles round in a high, graceful arch, as though I were at the piano. Index fingers on "f" and "j," the remaining digits spanning the row, as though the keys beneath would play a scale or an arpeggio beginning on middle "C."

And I am five years old in Carol Hurst's piano studio, learning proper hand position as passed down from the masters. Wrists down. Knuckles high. Fingers round. Pads flat. Elegant as a ballet.

When scales become sentences, arpeggios morph into paragraphs, etudes--poetic blog posts, and concertos become other large-scale works that lie dormant on a CD-R someplace dark.

My hands at the keyboard, my daily practice.

The best of all instructors.

Hello, August

tinywhitedaisies

You are a signal. A nudge.

A harbinger of urgency.

You beckon, Quick! Before it all slips away!

You arrive, and suddenly, the days that drip with sunshine are numbered.

And yet, summer's pull, that enticement that urges me to languish in time as the days lengthen, warm, and swell with a certain nectar of loveliness--seems to become more and more elusive as the years wax on. I am lost in my work, keen to fulfill my duties, programmed to stay on task.

And yet, I do feel the draw, the compulsion to heed August's warning. For in it, she reminds me:

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...that summer used to mean wiling away the hours climbing the stories-tall pine tree at the side of the house, searching for the end of the world at the top of the branches, being mindful of the pine sap in every step, challenging myself to go two, maybe three branches farther than I did the day before, until my mama calls me in for tuna fish sandwiches, some cold grapes, potato chips, and graham crackers filled with vanilla frosting--chocolate if I'm really lucky.

 

masika wa

...that summer used to mean long, hot days at the neighborhood pool. Diving for stuff. Playing trolls. Daring each other to jump off the high dive. Sharing a Dreamsicle afterwards. Eating it in the viewing stands up top, everything echoing, the noisy pool sounds warbling in our plugged-up ears, distorted and clangy. Halos around everything we look at with our itchy burning bloodshot red eyes, thinking, goggles are for sissies.

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...that summer used to mean staying up late watching Johnny Carson with my dad. Popping popcorn and adding too much butter but just enough salt. Making Kool-Aid. Opening the windows wide in the hopes of a breeze. In the discernible background, the creek rushes by, there is a symphony of crickets, and big bugs crash against the front French windows in search of light. There is also laughter, and the knowledge that love is more true here than in extraordinary events.

 

Etsy

...that summer used to mean campfires and marshmallows, book-reading marathons, and amusement park rides.

 

Etsy

...band camps and drive-ins and night games with friends.

Etsy

And even now, as the Dog Day's moon makes her way back to full, and those carefree days seem ever longer ago, I make August's list in an effort to capture a hint of that young, fun-loving girl:

• Pick blueberries until my fingers are purple
• Bake a pie, a buckle, and a crisp
• Visit the ocean, at least one more time
• Explore Boston for a day, or maybe even a weekend
• Read two more books
• Eat more lobster
• Pay my respects to Robert Frost
• Eat fresh basil and ripe, home-grown tomatoes until they're growing out of my ears

Perhaps the activities have changed over the years, and perhaps I often feel too busy to truly savor the magic that is summer, but August is calling me, and I best not keep her waiting.

How 'bout you? What are your must-do's this August, and what did summer used to mean to you?

She

...is in the air, on her way to me.

I feel an anticipatory thrill as I contemplate our reunion embrace, a tug of devotion so deep it's like she's being handed to me for the first time all over again.

Knowing that the yearning I've felt over the last few months will melt away in that instant.

Like a child at Christmas, I am eager. Seven days to revel in our togetherness, and it's all ahead.

What was once so commonplace is now so rare...

 

...and therefore so much more appreciated.

 

I'm In My Element

 
Is there nothing so wonderful as catching up on your Google Reader in the hotel room the night before a trade show with a cuppa decaf non-fat mocha by your side, knowing that the happy reunion with your bestie is just minutes away?

I'm in my element, and ever grateful for the opportunity once again.

Some Days

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...I am so lonely, I wonder:

 Whatever on earth possessed us to think that we could move 2,500 miles away from everything that we knew...

...and be fine?

I Weeded a Garden in Misty Rain

Spring Mist by Robert Rea

This afternoon, I weeded a garden in misty rain. All around me, a trifling chill, like early spring. My gloved fingers immersed in soil moist from persistent showers, pull at a web of roots feeding healthy but undesirable greenery like blood vessels to a tumor. The beetles I disturb scurry in a frenzy as their status quo collapses. A frighteningly large spider, burdened by her corpulent egg sac, totters hesitantly, then stills as she assesses the potential threat. I eagerly move to a different section, and give her--and myself--some space.

I reach underneath a shrub to grab the clever growth that shelters there. I firm up my posture and tug as tiny leaves release the drops of rain that have been collecting. The dewy droplets cascade down my arm, one by one then together gathering unto one another, soft as petals, this shower of loveliness.

When I realize. I am going to be happy in this place. In this strange climate where weeding in the rain seems more right than weeding in the sun. In this place of extremes where it can be the end of summer one day and the beginning of spring the next. In this place where I am learning who I really want to be. By myself. For myself.

Myself.

So, Hello

Wrinkled Notebook  Paper from Grunge Textures

 

As you may have surmised, I haven't been able to write. For a while now.

There is so much to tell. So much to recap. So many feelings to process.

And yet, each time I sit down at my laptop to do so, my mind goes blank (which is such a cliche), I am denied access to my feelings, and a kind of foggy fatigue invades every sentence I start and backspace over.

I miss writing here. (I'm certainly doing enough of it in the Moxie Fab World.) I miss connecting with you, my blogfriends. So I thought I'd stop by and just say "hello."

So, hello. :)

I Love

...meandering through tulips, the soft-as-butter petals like a kaleidoscope closing as the day grows long.

...dreaming of my father, his brief visits a portal to when he loved me. 

...whispering good night to my ol' pal, Scout. Folded in quiet darkness, I pet him gently in his favorite spots, saying this will be the time that I will miss the most.

...April snowstorms that do not stick.

...the smell of yeast. The warmth of rising dough. The rhythm in kneading. The intrinsic goodness of home-baked bread.

...waking up lighter than the day before.

...unexpected hugs at the kitchen sink.

...the calm in morning.

...the treasure of a day with clarity.

...feeling Debussy under my fingers at the piano.

...drifting off to sleep, wondering what the next day will bring.

... oh, and diving deep down on a list and just chomping on it mashing it to bits not just crossing ticks off one by one but really masticating it good and chewy like you would a Powerbar followed by that singularly reluctant chunky swallow. Like I did today.

Yeah, that.

And the Questions Wait for Answers to Themselves

Your presence here today affirms your grip.
As castles fall, so many whitesome flakes
Insist upon this early springtime tantrum
Like a lion in a cage I hear you roar.

I have patiently embraced your willful nature
Endured your ashen skies with strength and grace
While windy landscapes twist and writhe in laughter
And I bargain for an anchor to embrace

The brightness that will finally tear her from me
The promise of new life that was misgiven
The chance to build upon a ground that's shaking
The dream that asks, "Forsake all that you know."

And though I skirt about your essence vaguely
For some tales are not ready to be told
I know that I must linger in your beauty
That belies this hairy rope to which I cling

While wakeful sleep disturbs what peace I'm given
And change rolls like the thunder on the plain
I wait for answers knowing all the questions
And the questions wait for answers to themselves.

The Innocence in Sleep

To save my marriage, I started sleeping with earplugs.

Mark has chronic allergies. We knew it wasn't a good sign when he sneezed hundreds of times on the day we moved into our home. Literally. He thought his ribs were broken by the day's end. After a trip to the allergist's office and a ridiculously itchy and pustular series of scratch tests later, we found that he's allergic to absolutely everything that grows in our neck of the woods in addition to dust and mold.

That's like everything that exists in the world.

For my part, I am extraordinarily sensitive to noise. And I mean on the level of utter ridiculousness. I can't read or write if there's a speck of noise around me. I am insanely and quite unreasonably irritated by loud gum-chewing and/0r popping, the flicking sound of fingernail-picking, fidgety noises of any and all types and varieties, and if you're unwrapping a piece of candy clothed in cellophane at an arts event within  my earshot, you may just want to brace yourself for the intensity of crusty looks I'm going to throw your way until you stop.

And since I'm laying it all out on the table here, I have been, on many occasions, referred to as the nasal Nazi.

As in, if someone has a stuffy nose, I am through the roof. Especially when there's all that wheezing going on at dinnertime. Please, people. Deal with your boogers before the swallowing begins.

So, 'round about the time when my girls got to be high schoolers with curfews and I started sleeping even lighter than I had since the days they were born, the whistling, popping, snoring, and wheezing that was my poor husband's attempt to sleep through the night brought our marriage close to nuclear annihilation.

He had a decongestant. And a nasal spray. And a sinus rinse. But he hated them. And they weren't always effective. If he remembered to take them.

On sleepless nights I would listen to him wheeze and snap and pop, and in my frustration, wonder if he'd taken his meds. The next morning came the inevitable grilling. If he hadn't taken his meds, then it meant that he didn't love me enough to remember. If he had, then I would feel guilty about the questions and even worse about the sleep I was continually losing.

It became, at the very least, a touchy subject.

Until the day I realized that I could sleep with earplugs. Not that purple kind made out of latex because those just make my ears itch to the point where I'd consider cutting them right off, but the white foamish kind that blank out all sound, enveloping me in a cocoon of silence that belongs just to me.

Marriage saved.

But then, last night, I woke up for no good reason whatsoever and was having a hard time falling back to sleep. Mark had been tossing and turning as well. So, I took out my earplugs to see if he was awake. It was then that I heard it. The peaceful rhythm of his sleepy breath, in and out, in and out. Calm and deep, he filled his lungs which nourished his heart which sustained his life while I imagined the untold dreams that splashed like watercolors on the insides of his eyelids. I nuzzled in closer and listened, really listened, the warmth of his face and the curve of his arms like a shelter. In and out. In and out. And in and out.

The sound of sleep. The thread of life. The primal gift.

I can't give up my earplugs. But I can remember to listen to the innocence in sleep.