that's mrs. mediocrity to you

.

some days

you just have to tell the rain

where to go

.

.

.

.

I went outside last night at dusk and the grass was already covered in dew and it took me right back to my childhood, when I was always barefoot. There was a strip of red sitting on the horizon, a perfect half moon just clearing the trees, and I walked to the end of my driveway to look out across the fields.

I love living in farm country, love this spot on this hill, love the “sheltering sky” that defines my world.

It was a very busy day in a very busy week, and I’d barely looked up from the work at hand all day. And today will be the same. But I had that moment, out looking for my naughty kitten, when life caught my eye.

Funny how easy it is to forget to notice. And how simple it is to remember.

I just had to look up.

There is food growing all around me. Stars peeking out from behind day’s curtain. Eternity stretching out above me as a grasshopper jumps into my path.

The cat was nowhere to be seen, but I knew he was watching. He wasn’t ready to go inside yet and I couldn’t blame him.

He knows exactly how to live.

if i could walk away from the answers
my footprints would fill with more questions

i am held in place by the harpooned taproot
of my own bark-coated existence

but the leaves i toss into the wind
have every right to fly

the ground you walk on is made from the crust
of today’s leftover uncertainty

nothing is real but faith and
i believe in the sun
burning through my temporary cloak

winter is meant to reveal what we’re made of
and you think
it should be more complicated

forever is time’s long lost daughter
singing to the sailor of finite

what you see is only an echo

.

.

.

the water keeps fighting to get in
and i am out of buckets

not learning how to swim
feels like a mistake

now

too late for fixing
and too soon for proving

but already my feet are wet
and the water falls down the steps
with a lion-headed roar

the other day you brought sand bags
built me a fence
to keep the outside out
and the inside in

and that was love

these four walls
are my haven and my prison

and i paint them all pretty
coat them with pictures

but i’m always staring
out the windows

at the empty places

in the sky moon harbor
my hope sloshes home from

it’s cloudy today and the grey
washes in

floating past my knees
in a ribbon of revelation
on its way to almost forgotten

the hummingbird at my window
flies right through the rain
her wings turned to jewels
by habit

and the hollow fueled echo

of hunger

.

.

.

.

beauty shines

through every

color

.

.

.

.

I am listening to silence (which is never quiet), I am listening to summer (pretending to be fall), I am listening to flowers bloom (a whispered symphony).

The sound of bare feet on wood floors, old floors, the kind that have enough character to creak.

Bird song that creeps beneath closed windows, a tea kettle whistling loudly, the hushed rush of clouds rolling by.

Everyone has all the answers.

I cover my ears, preferring my unwisdom, my empty bowl of questions. There are things I enjoy not knowing.

Where the tree frog sleeps at night. If dew is enough to quench a flower’s thirst. Why a book can break my heart, and still, I’ll keep reading.

The truth is, none of it matters. The truth is, my truth is always going to be different than yours, because universal doesn’t mean we have the same eyes. There are no perfect gardens. The all have bugs, unless you kill them with chemicals, and then that’s just a synthetic version of paradise.

By this time of year, it’s hard to find a plant in my garden that has no evidence of damage. Holes chewed by slugs, or grasshoppers, blooms made small and weak by pests that suck the life from their stems, leaves yellowed by lack of nutrient. This is life and we call it less than perfect, not-so-pretty.

We look away.

I use scissors to cut out the worst of the leaves, the dried brown blooms gone to seed.

Afterwards, I think the plants look awkward, fake, lopsided. They were happy to show us their bounty, their scars, their proof of life. Happy to be riddled with this evidence of time.

Life always makes its mark on you. If perfect is the only beauty you can see, you’ll always miss the map of scars leading you back to your heart.

I am listening to silence (which is never quiet). I hold out my wrinkled hand and brush dirt from yesterday’s cheek.

I am dirty, I am tattered, I am smiling.

And my lips are stained by berries.

.

mother nature invented fireworks

.

love is everywhere i turn

.

outrage makes me tired

.

reading keeps me sane

.

writing keeps me whole

.

my garden keeps me centered

.

fireflies at midnight are still magic

.

every sunrise is a page in the book of possibility

.

every sunset is a sentence in your story

.

whispering poplars sing the best lullabyes

.

birdsong is the symphony of life

.

.

.

.

.

the bells of time

are always ringing

in the garden

of possibility

.

whether you hear

music or

cacophony

depends

on the rhythm

of your heart

.

.

.

.

It’s been a month of things being broken. I hear Mercury’s to blame, and smile at the notion, but then I believe it anyway, because it’s been a month of things being broken.

Some things get fixed and other things get replaced and still other things get discarded.

Clearing the air and the space and the clutter that looms in my mind. I want to fix everything, I can’t fix anything, no, I can fix this.

Somehow, I inherited the fix-it gene. And with it, the particular strain of stubbornness required to make it work, whatever it is that I’m fixing. Both a bane and a blessing, I suppose.

But I like fixing things better than discarding. We throw away so much these days, without thinking, without taking in the bigger implications of where it all goes. Some days, I want to stop buying anything. Tiny bottles of cream in boxes four times their size. Two grocery items in one shopping bag. Cardboard and cardboard and cardboard. Recycling bins overflowing.

There are too many things that can’t be fixed, things that are intended to be discarded as soon as they stop working.

Some days, I feel this notion is filtering over into our humanity. I see so many quips about discarding people who have hurt you or don’t encourage you or don’t do this or that, and it makes me wonder. We used to fix our relationships along with our toasters. Have we abandoned that practice, as well?

We have so many choices, too many choices, and that becomes its own kind of stuck.

I cant find a decent charcoal grill at a decent price to replace the three we’ve had since this one that my husband took to our camp. The models they sell now are so visibly cheap that they might last a year if you’re lucky. And everyone uses gas grills these days, because it’s faster, and perhaps, a little, because it’s cleaner. I try to talk my husband into gas, but he’s old school, he likes the process of starting the briquets and waiting for the right temperature. I think how much easier a gas grill would be, but I’m not the griller, so charcoal it is. Besides, I suppose a gas grill would be just one more thing that would break.

It’s been a month of things being broken.

But even so, my garden is lush, we have food on our table, and people we love, and blue skies at least half the time. It’s summer and the glass is half full. Another year, pouring itself out for the taking.

I drink to you, June.

Now come on over here and sit next to me while I fix the torn hem of your dress.

.

.

.

because

each moment holds its own redemption

each sunrise is a dare

each drop of rain was once a cloud

.

yesterday

this flower slept in a bed of mud

.

but look how pretty it wears

today

.