Absolute favorite place to go for vacation:  The Oregon Coast.  Took the family (all but Michaelyn, who stayed behind to work and socialize) a couple of weeks ago; Frank had just accepted a job and asked for a little time before he started.  Rented a house between Newport and Waldport overlooking the beach…was it Seal Rock?  Seal Cove?  Something like that.  And we listened to the waves and splashed in them and flew kites and combed the beach and were content.  That’s all, really.  Feet in sand and gravel and water, playing and looking for cool beach stuff.

And I learned it is good to be still sometimes.  To be quiet and let good things come to me

We were eager to hunt agates; there was a big jar of impressive ones on the coffee table of the house we rented.  We read  how it is easier to find them at low tide, after the ocean has done its washing and pounding and sifting of the beaches.  Easier to see them with the sunlight glowing behind them (many agates are nearly transparent).  Easier to see them when they’re wet.

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I found a magazine that beautifully showcased artful blogging.  There was eye candy for the artistically appreciative everywhere.  I read it and was entranced.  And inspired.  And immediately resolved… resolved to gather momentum in my own blogging endeavor.  Seize the artsy day.  Pack beauty into my life.  Take on more projects, be non-stop creative (with giddy abandon), and write great things.  With amazing pictures.  Twice a week (rather than my customary once-or-twice a month).

But I’m pretty sure it’s been past a week since I was so resolved, and this is my first blog entry in all those days, if we count my announcement of Cynthia’s guest blog.  Until today, I hadn’t started (let alone completed) any projects, though I have eaten a lot of plums.  I want to do so many things and I have so little time for any of them.  Yes, yes, I know– it’s a common, almost not-worth-mentioning quandary–but in my case, it is exacerbated by the fact that when I do have time (Two Whole Hours In a Row!  oh joy oh rapture), I have a panic attack, wondering frantically which of all my creative passions I should choose to indulge.  Knowing that once I decide, there’s this crazy pressure to Not Waste Time and to Achieve Perfection, because after all, I May Never Pass This Way Again.   [continue reading…]

I live by metaphors.  Really I do.  I need them.  When I am stalked by conundrums,and doldrums, angst and despair, frustration and deadends, I search for a metaphor.  Metaphors enable paradigm shifts. The need for self-discipline or self-talk diminishes.  Metaphors help me see and feel differently.

A lot of my metaphors are gardening metaphors.  I “dig” them.  I do.  I “sow” them.   I do.  It is because I live them in the garden of my backyard.

But sometimes gardening metaphors are too earth-bound , and I search for something to lift me beyond my ruminations.  For example, when we first moved to Hawaii.  I couldn’t find a gardening metaphor to work for me.  If I put in roots, then it would mean that I would be living far away from my beloved family for more than a season.  No, rooting couldn’t and wouldn’t work.   [continue reading…]

Do you remember the song “At Seventeen” by Janis Ian?  It’s a sad song.  It’s a sad song, and I knew, even as a little girl, that it was tragically relevant to life.  But I am happy to say that it is only marginally relevant to this post.  Hardly germane at all.  Don’t ask me why I mention it.

Ok fine, I’ll tell you:  Balance.  Or blessed dichotomy.  It is a minor reason (of the multitude) that I cry when I watch “Sense and Sensibility”— where Elinor can’t stop sobbing (in delicate snorts & hiccups) while Edward awkwardly (finally!) proposes.  It is the shadow that lies split behind Chris De Burgh’s “Lady in Red”.  It nuances why pulling off The Perfect Red Dress is such a thing to celebrate.

Thankfully, Maurya doesn’t have much in the way of  “At Seventeen” baggage.  For one thing, she’s still sixteen.  For another, she’s not one to pine for long; she makes her own way.  But still.  I don’t know; there was an element of catharsis for me as I sewed the Perfect Red Dress for her from fabrics and pattern that she had chosen for herself.  We shared the creation of the dress, as we share the bittersweet heritage of women.

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I’m not in Hawaii.  I could have been, but I’m not.  Frank is there right now on business.  I could have used some of his multitude of sky miles, could have sent the kids back to Oregon to stay with my parents, could have packed things that would be dreamy in the tropics.  I’ve never been tropical before.  But the kids are in school, and Oregon might as well be Bangladesh, for all the time and effort it would take to get them there.  Four days in Hawaii (plus two days travel) wasn’t worth the price.  At least that is what Frank and I agreed.  Now he’s there, having dinner with Cynthia and her family (South Shore burritos for last night’s dinner; I wonder what he’ll get tonight?), exclaiming over the lush green mountains and driving along the North Shore, and I am blogging after sending kids to bed.   [continue reading…]

I know I’ve said it somewhere before:  I run to cope.  Not that (in the global sense of things) I have anything gruesomely heavy to cope with;  my stuff is the ordinary, mundane stuff almost everyone faces at one time or another.  Loneliness for instance.  Discouragement.  Myopia.  Sticky Countertops.  Disorganizational Malaise (such as lost social security cards).  Heartache (which I’ve affectionately nicknamed a cracked sternum, fighting depression with humor).  Nothing really terrible.  (Though I am forty, and though random things like the turn of a newborn baby’s face or a farmer’s sepia-toned drawl make me want to either burst into tears, or beg to be invited to dinner, I refuse, REFUSE, to classify any of my stuff as “midlife crisis”). [continue reading…]

Note:  “Soul Sister” belongs to the kids and I.  Frank is warming up to it.  I am selfishly jealous when I hear it in public; I like to think of the song as just ours.  We crank it up and sing along and move with it when it shows up on one of our playlists, wherever we are.

Also note:  I wrote most of this blog entry a week ago.  School had just started, temperatures had dipped, and I was feeling nostalgic about summer.  I said trembly things like “Summer’s variance is a layered delight,” and talked about smelling fall in the light filtering through open windows.  Poetic, but a little incoherent.  What does that all mean, really?  I’m not sure.  Suffice it to say, I’m kind of sad that summer is on its way out.  I’m eyeing the sweaters stashed high in my closet woefully.  So, I’ll invite summer to linger.  I’ll talk about it, flatter it into staying.  And then I’ll ease inconspicuously and non-chronologically into an epic tale of how we squeezed most of our summer fun into nine summer days.

Summer’s heat can evoke anything from steam cookers and dry ovens to the slow, sweet caress of a lover.  And ah, the luxury of bare legs (and even feet) to traverse the stretched-out length of day with (am I waxing poetic again? Well).

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