that's mrs. mediocrity to you

June 30. Another year half-gone, and I thought, the other day, about those words—the ones that pick us, or we them, back in January.

And I know the word finishing came up, somewhere in my mind’s conversation with itself, and I smiled because I did finish a few things, but there is always so much left undone. And there has been learning. So much learning, and that is never finished, and I smiled again at the lesson in that short sentence.

But a new word popped into my head when I was thinking about this year: economy. And I settled right into that one, like my favorite old sweater, the one with the stain and the pills and the ragged edges that can always be found thrown over the back of a chair.

Economy.

Of motion. Time. Emotion. Energy. The paring down to what actually matters, and the rearranging of what’s left in my hand.

Choosing what’s precious and letting the rest slip through my fingers. Working hard to make the changes that allow me to do that. Practicing economy, in all its definitions, trying again and again to get it right.

The Year of Economy.

I kind of like that.

It’s also been the year of crazy and the year of letting go and the year of holding on and the year of finishing and learning and also, the year of watching, but underneath everything else, in proper-noun form, it’s been economy all along.

I’m looking to balance the scales, even as I understand that they will always be falling to one side or the other, day-by-day, hour by hour. Sometimes up, sometimes down, almost never right in the middle. I’m saving up pennies though, because once in a while, you just need a tiny bit of help to tip things in the other direction.

I’m saving.

Myself and my time and anyone/anything else I can.

Which isn’t much on a day-to-day basis, but I’m guessing, or at least I’m hoping, that it will all add up in the end.

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Comfort zones. They get tighter as we get older, much like that favorite pair of jeans. We get set in our ways, and we like that, mostly, we find comfort in routine and pattern and the familiar.

But life is too complicated to allow us to stay in any one place for very long. Just when we settle in and start feeling all warm and fuzzy, something happens, something changes, and we have to learn how to move through life all over again. And I’m okay with that. It keeps things interesting at the very least.

We go through phases. And they’re called phases because they are slices of time that have a beginning and an end.

The leaves on the oakleaf hydrangea just outside my studio window are just about to open. Dozens of buds waiting for just the right moment. Each one unique, if you look closely, yet all part of the same mother plant. Yes, that’s a metaphor. A nice reminder to myself this morning, a sunny moment in a week that’s been filled with clouds both literal and figurative.

I am learning new things. It is making my brain hurt, which happens as you get older. My body is holding me hostage with hormones, and I keep reminding myself that I am becoming. Moving on. Getting ready to open to a new season of life.

Pfft. That makes it sound pretty, and quite honestly, it’s not. But it’s going to happen just the same, and I’m going to embrace all of it, even the rage. (Yes, there is rage.)

Maybe you lose something as the years go by, bits of innocence and wonder, but you don’t forget they exist.

I think.

Maybe I’ll find my way back, or perhaps I’ll end up in a different place altogether. Yes. I’m pretty sure that’s the answer.

But I’m still asking questions. And I’m still going to open, even when it is painful.

Because there is sun to feel on my face, and a garden to plant, again, and all these people to love with the heart of a crone.

Reasons enough to spread my arms wide.

Reasons enough.

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of new growth, old sun

rising through the miracle

of spring’s verdant dawn

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A poem a day for 30 days, in honor of National Poetry Month: Day 16
I’m participating in NaPoWriMo, and the Writer’s Digest Poem a Day Challenge

Today is off-theme, because grandbabies.

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There are so many way in this life to have your heart broken,
so many days that feel like a too-hard struggle
in a battle already lost.

And yet
the world keeps spinning,
the babies keep smiling,
the flowers keep blooming,
the birds keep singing.

If perception is everything,
reflection is nothing.

A mirage of reality.

The bowl in my hand is clear glass and heavy.

What I see is the flame of forgiveness.

A vessel, cradling my heart.

Light, made tangible.

I hold on.

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she walked to the end of a drive half frozen
and stood beneath the tallest tree

a single crow announced her presence
in a tone of calm resentment

and the smile on her face grew wider
than the patchwork quilt of magic

wrapped around
one fragile

shoulder

in the pine
the mockingbird whistled

cat-call face-small arbitration
filling the air between them

earth moved by tender greeting
recognition repetition new rendition

as the wind attempted to whisper-woo
a smear of color from the bone

of each white cheek

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Join us over at dVerse Poets where we are honoring the passing of Harper Lee
with a prompt to write a narrative poem.

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I spend hours each day doing nothing but thinking of things I should be doing. Because February is a time-thief and I forgot, yet again, to lock those oh-so-precious hours away somewhere safe. I forgot because February is also a memory-thief, and a whine-maker.

And my body refuses to do anything but semi-hibernate.

My mind burrows deeper into the cocoon of warmth, refusing to venture out unless there’s sun. Unfortunately, February and the sun are barely acquainted, even though I am forever inviting them to come for tea, sit at the table, get to know each other better. I even make cookies. But somehow wires always get crossed and they show up separately, alone, too late or too early, and me, my tea, and the table watch snow fall and birds struggle and ice form. And, of course, it’s all beautiful, because otherwise, how could we survive?

By now you can tell I have nothing to say, really. Words spin through my mind in a storm of tease, and mostly, I ignore them. I have things to do, or rather, things to think about doing. I cook and eat, sleep and read, work and build fires. I leave my house more often than I used to, because there are people I love to help care for. I do that at least. Care.

It’s Leap Year. I wonder how it is that we couldn’t somehow manage to add that extra day into June, or October? Still, an extra 24 hours is always something to celebrate. Also, it will be the last day of February, so there’s that.

Also, there’s politics. Everywhere I turn, there’s politics. I have so much to say that I just keep quiet. It’s a parade (charade?) I can’t look away from. Mother Nature seems so tame in comparison.

And look, the sun is shining. Through super-cold, frostbite-inducing, blue-as-ice air.

I’d better go enjoy it while I can.

Perhaps my face will freeze in a smile, or at least something that resembles one.

I wouldn’t want to frighten the lion.

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winter rides through

on a white

white
horse

promising mud and wet

ever afters

i stand in the rain
and the cold

runs rivulets

down the hollowed out
hollow
of my back

arching
with forgotten
electricity

as i grow a mask
(transparent carapace)

made from sky and hours
and the fallen echo
sound

of grey hooves

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can be a good thing

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Some days you have a story that isn’t yours to tell. The words add up and bobble around inside your head, bouncing off the boundaries you’ve put in place to keep them corralled. Silence fills the room like a big grey blanket. Everything is muffled, charged with static, covered over with the possibility of fog.

Today in one of those days, and all I can do is think about the ways we save each other in this life. The ways we save ourselves. The tiny little things that heal hearts, or sew them back together with crooked sampler stitches. Smiles and soup and hugs and listening. Being there.

Love is always messy and unchartered. And we are always finding our way together, bumping blindly along the path that stretches before us.

And the questions rise. How do you fit a whole life into a box?

The memories we have become a knot too complicated to untangle. We can only pull out a strand here and there and watch as it dangles. That day, that night, that violet neatly placed between the pages of a bible. Remember when? Heartache and happiness all mixed together in a jumble of once was. Love holding it all together like glue.

Suffice it to say that all we have is our story. Some of them are big and broken, some are smaller and demure. I am learning to cradle each one in the palm of my hand. Delicate petals dried and tucked away between pages that smell of time’s passing. Bits of hope gone dry and brittle, but saved, just the same.

Cherished.

And there it is, the dust of grace, gathered in the seam.

Some days you purse your lips and blow that dust back out into the world. Other days, you close the book back up again, ever-so-gently.

For safekeeping.

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told

through wind

and sky

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