that's mrs. mediocrity to you

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Today I am over at Vision & Verb

thinking about things that remind me of other things,

and letters dancing…

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and this photo really cracked me up.

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lift your lid and

take a peek

at what’s inside.

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May 26. A day like any other.

Another weekday filled with work and longing to be elsewhere, outside in my garden, running, being held up by a breeze.

Except. I stole the afternoon. I couldn’t help it. And I’m not doing anything, not pulling one million dandelions or planting or watering or designing or cleaning or fixing or producing.

I am sitting in my garden listening to birdsong and breezes, basking in an already too-warm sun, trying not to feel guilty while doing it.

Okay, fine, I’m not having all that much trouble with the guilt.

The bluebirds haven’t been here at all today, I think the cats may have finally frightened them away. This makes me sad and relieved all at once.

But the mockingbird has a nest in the row of pines along the edge of the property, and while I can’t see him, I can hear him, show-off that he is, marking time in the voices of others.

These are the kind of moments I live for. I can’t decide if that’s sad or not. Although I think I’m deciding that it’s not. Oh, I’m sure there are people that have lives much more exciting than mine, but I am content sitting here in my garden, bare feet up on a chair, sun on my face, surrounded by the jungle of my existence.

I never thought I’d be this woman, sitting in her backyard, not needing anything else.

Yet here I am. Soaking up so much more than the sun that glints off the oh-so-white skin of my shins.

And what’s really blinding

is my smile.

you can’t walk through fire until
you’ve sunk to your knees in the mud

or smell lavender promises
before brushing dirt from your lips

you won’t ever see sky
if you wear lost glasses

you’ll never talk to a bird
if you keep yourself grounded

you will always lack focus
if you ride through the mist

green will always be just a color
if you never lay down in the grass.

you can’t circumvent hope
if you wish to survive

or hold hands with a rock
when you seek all that’s tender

but you can talk to the wall
that has built its own tower

and form a ladder of change
that will grow with each breath.

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:

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this post is part of one shot poetry wednesday

mostly the self-imposed ones, the ones that keep your feet sunk ankle deep in the mud of doubt, the ones that don’t leave any footprints, so no one else can follow.

or the ones that leave you standing alone in a field full of possibilities with no map, no compass, no food, no water.

they are crafty, these limits, they know how to get their own way, how to trick you into believing the sweet nothings they whisper in your ear, candy-coated barely audible murmurs that later become exactly what they are:

nothing.

they like to build boxes up around you of wood and of steel, then marry you to your fear and give you pretty wrapped packages filled with nothing but questions. always, the questions.

i’ve been living the questions for so long that i’ve forgotten why
i need to know the answers.

this is not despair, it’s a realization. i prefer that to despair, which feeds on itself like a morbid cannibal. there is never too much, there is always enough. no limits, there.

i choose instead to understand my limits, but not to accept them.
i refuse to open the package with the tag that says you cannot, or the one that says you will fall, or even the one that says perhaps.

i kick them all into the corner and watch as they mingle with themselves, a bit of dust, and notes from a girl who once believed those phrases of fear.

there is, however, one package left on the table, with a tag that says tomorrow.

but i’m not going to open that one, either.

at least not until it gets here.

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to breathe in the

glorious scent of life,

hold it in, there

just next to

your heart.

::

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in the end,

she went with

a ponytail.

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Today I am over at Vision & Verb

talking about how the more things change,

the more they stay the same…

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born just

five minutes

apart.

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friday the 13th has always been a lucky day for me, so i am ready
to embrace this one. partly because it’s my lucky day, partly just because it’s friday.

friday has always been my favorite day. isn’t it funny how we can have a favorite day of the week, when really, they are all the same?

24 hours, 60 minutes an hour, 60 seconds a minute, you get the idea.

but i love friday because i almost never work on a friday night. it’s my time to relax, even if i have to work on saturday. and sunday. which is often the case.

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something about this photo makes me think of these lines from a dylan song (visions of johanna):

she’s delicate and seems like the mirror

later followed by

the ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face

i’m not sure why, it may be because i am exhausted and somewhat delirious.

or maybe because it’s friday the 13th

i’ve never seen any of those movies, have you?

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is it just me, or does life seem really crazy these days, crazier than normal?

i can’t keep up. i need a vacation. or a long weekend with a stack of books and no agenda.

yeah, right. like that’s going to happen.

but that reminds me, i finished the hemingway project. so if you have any ideas for great fiction to read, i am looking for suggestions.

i miss hemingway already. really, i do.

is that weird?