I am not sure if I am mature enough, strong enough, tough enough to handle this holiday. My oldest child, a man with a family of his own, is 750 miles away. My youngest who still lives at home at 22, is working until 9:30 pm.

I still bought a 19 lb. turkey. Where are my sisters, laughing with me in the kitchen as we drink wine and dance and cook?

Where is my husband, dicing onions and running errands and when all is said and done smiles at me across the table?

How do I do this? How do I cook a Thanksgiving dinner for two at 9:30 at night and go to work the next morning at 10 with a belly full of rich food eaten too late at night?

Somehow I have to honor myself, be my own friend, spend the alone time enjoying the peace and tranquillity that is so alien to my existance.

I have to make a new tradition. I have to recognise that time has passed and I am no longer a mother responsible for establishing a tradition for her sons.

I have to realise I am no longer a wife with a man beside me to relax with into familiarity.

Somehow I have to transition into what is real, the present moment, and be thankful.

I will remind myself, looking in the mirror, that I love me, just for being here.

Even if I cry into the gravy.

I have to call today a rainbow day. You can be driving along, thinking about all the things you haven't done, have to do, or wish you done and then you see a rainbow and all that "stuff" is forgotten in the sheer wonder and beauty of God's prism strewn across the sky like a bouquet of flowers.

I haven't had an easy time lately with my emotions. My expectations of what life should be like at 54 in my imagination are far from my daily reality.

Lets just say I read too many Jane Eyre novels interspersed with spicy romance novels to even have a clue about how real relationships and life works.

But back to the rainbow... I bitched and moaned to my best friend about EVERYTHING he did wrong, and forgot to take each day I COULD enjoy with him just like the word says phonetically "IN JOY".

We took a vagabond trip to artist Andrew Wyeth's showcase museum..

Oh! To stand and be close enough to touch art such as his! Each beam of wood so detailed I could taste the splinter on my tongue!

His nude of Simi as a young girl and her emergence as a woman puddled in the water of virginity..OH!

His Helene (might be wrong on the name but the painting was ecstatic) with the sunlight glinting off her yellow braid of hair and her feminine brush like a golden spindle of desire...

His white wagon delineated in the moonlight and reflected on patches of snow with the darkness stabbed by layer and layer of black and blacker and ebony...

How did he do it? What was inside him, what vacillating vision of darkness and light forced his brush?

Kittycat just walked across the keyboard...

Sign to stop this post of a cherished rainbow day I will wear as a necklace of life.

Is it really one a.m.? I just walked through the door from work. Kitchen madness with morning prep work interrupted by early customers picking up salads, followed by the lunch dine in crowd, merging into late afternoon getting ready for dinner, flying back and forth like a dervish with a spoon in my hand.

Time to go to bed...missed breakfast, lunch and dinner. Hope my mind follows my body and sleep comes easy, because tomorrow is another long, long day, same scenario, with a small catered party thrown in for a grand cosmic chuckle.

That's okay, I can do it, and do it well.

It's 5am and all is still save the humming of the refigerator. I woke up an hour ago, knowing I had a 13 hour workday ahead, but unable to go back to sleep.

I forgot to call in the produce order for work. Lots of valid excuses for the slip, but the bottom line is I didn't get it done and we need that order TODAY.

I guess I'll make a trip to BJ's before work and try to salvage the situation.

What I'd really like to do is calmly buy a oneway train ticket to ANYWHERE and leave my life for awhile.

All because of a forgotten produce order? No, it runs deeper than that. I'm tired of the daily routine. I'm tired of being responsible. I'm tired of feeling like a bird with her wings taped to her sides.

Oh well..it will get better. At least I'm writing again, even if it is about a forgotten produce order at 5am.

Ok, at this point I question whether or not I am a writer. I haven't written in so long, I feel like a born-again virgin on her wedding night...awkward, but still knows how to do it.

I like graveyards. I have loved them all my life...the weathered stones with the half seen numbers delineating life and death, the lasting sentiments written by loved ones still alive.

I like to walk them, imagining the moments of each person, once laughing and crying and birthing and cooking and holding hands.

Did they hold hands? Were they generous with their material goods? Did they work hard, scraping and saving and then leave it to the next generation? Were they mean spirited and nasty?

Did the ones that left their stones love them? That is the burning question for me.

The only question...

I like to touch the stones and try to fathom their lives, and hence better my own.

tonight is the pisces full moon-I've already heard word of a friend's husband thrown in jail and gotten a phone call from my former husband about a reunion with his daughter from his first marriage.

Hmnn...what's next?

Oh those days of Jesus following me with his eyes and bloody thorn crown, with the fan in the window blowing sticky Brooklyn air onto the bleach scented sheets.

I was 10, spending a week with Grandma Mary and Grandpa Pasquale, squeaky clean and suburb reared, about to be educated into the glories of love.

Could I know then how a man impossibly old and a woman plump and lined could have a passionate love affair? No, never...

Grandpa called me monkey, and let me climb out the fire escape to get his bottle of ruby painted wine. I was exalted by the black wraut iron filigree and the height from the 10 story apt. building, clothes strung across the brick alley. As I grabbed the heavy green jug, I looked both ways to make sure the Jesus picture and my grandma didn't see me, and spit over the side, just to see how far it would go.

Grandma's hands were tiny, with long fingers and oval nails. She took two glasses from the enamal cupboard and sliced peaches into them. Grandpa poured wine over the peaches and daubed a bit on my tongue.

Busy day at work today. Getting myself ready to go in now. Already made a yummy chicken soup with chickpeas, spinach and orzo for lunch but have a lot of prep for pickups this weekend. Not looking forward to coming home and taking a trip out to the farm with more stuff. Just want to be moved and in one house! Later...

Step by step, inch by inch. That's my attitude as I have changed course and decided to cook again for a living, working in a hot kitchen 6 days a week as I pack boxes and take carloads of stuff to the new house I'm moving into in less then 2 weeks.

Step by step, inch by inch.

Okay, I haven't posted in a long, long time. The daffadils have come and gone and the corn is already growing an inch a day here on Delmarva.

Best news is my old beat-up computer has been magically resuscitated with my novel in progress, my poetry AND my 3 years worth of newspaper columns intact. Yippee!

I think a year's worth of writers block is quite long enough and I can feel the pull to write curling around me.

Of course, lots of other things happening too. Did I tell you about?

Hmnn...will have to wait til tomorrow for THAT story.

It is the morning of the second day back in my little cottage by the lake in Michigan. I have slept deeply, with contentment, as if the very walls and sugurpine floorboards welcomed me back.

Though my name is still on the deed, when I left it to my then 22 year old son 5 years ago and moved to Maryland with my youngest son I knew I had passed the baton of ownership on. I walked my gardens and caressed my lilac tree and rested my cheek against the hundred year old maple in the backyard. Deep inside I knew it was time to journey on.

And here I am, home but not home, because my son and his wife and her two children and their baby they made together have loved this little house into a sanctuary of their own design.

They honor me as a respected Mother, and greeted me with homemade cookies and sweet smelling sheets and the arms of my grandchildren.

It has just occurred to me that there is a reason that we all get along so well~my son is a Pisces, my daughter in law a Scorpio, my grandaughter a Scorpio, my two grandsons Cancers, and me? I'm a Cancerian too.

There is a synchronicity and flow to our relationships that is as soothing as a calm still lake.

Tomorrow I will head home to Maryland and only the crashing of the sea with its ebb and flow and endless horizon will catch my tears.

I don't want to leave this family of my heart.

I find it amazing that I am sitting in the Philly airport writing on my laptop. Now I know how my grandmother must have felt with those newfangled cars and the advent of electricity and the telephone.

All around me people have computers and phones and gadjets hanging off of their bodies.

It feels eerie in here...no music at all, just the vibration and growl of the jets out the wall of windows. I don't see very many smiles on faces either, but I can hear all the thoughts constantly spinning in their heads.

Seems like a perfect time for a little sneaky breathing pick me up....

The morning didn't go so well...as a matter of fact I missed my early flight. I could blame my son for not coming home all night and then finally showing up redeyed and goofy after a night of partying, but when you start to take responsibiity for all your experiences it just doesn't have the same zing to it.

I went up to the ticket counter anyway, and the man put me on the next flight for free. I'll arrive 5 hours later, but I'll still arrive:)

An hour ago I had myself all cosy tucked into a corner of the airport, playing solataire and drinking coffee. There was a tiny Muslim woman dressed all in black and she asked me if I was going to Portland. I thought she was lost, but it turned out she was an airport employee. A few minutes later I heard her arguing politely with an elderly woman in a wheelchair. Apparently she had missed her flight, and she was blaming the Muslim woman for not having the plane back up to let her on!
She insisted that the employee give her money for food at the very least, and she said she was depressed and hungry.

Everybody within earshot was very careful to pretend they couldn't see or hear the two women verbally duking it out.

I didn't have enough money to give her, but I had a bag of nuts and m&m's. I got up and said "here. you're hungry. This will help." She looked at me in amazement as I opened up the bag.

Moral of the story: She was just plain hungry and scared and alone. It was so easy to reach out to her.

Oh boy I get to board in half an hour!

See you later:)

Today is misty and cool with bare trees topped with redbuds and white pear blossoms getting ready to burst.

I'm getting ready to burst too. Saturday morning before sunrise I'll be at the airport, ready to fly home to Michigan to see my firstborn grandbaby.

This has been a yearning for almost 2 years now, as he'll be 2 in July.

My son and his incredible woman bought me a ticket with their tax return! It was completely unexpected, and work and home and time seemed to flow effortlessly to make the trip happen.

All I have left to do is attend a company gathering this evening, go to work tomorrow morning, and dress up as a mysterious gypsy and read tarot cards for the local parrothead fundraiser tomorrow night. I like to play dressup and read cards, so it ought to be fun.

Then into the sky and into my family's arms!!! I'm so thankful I can feel my heart swelling in my chest.

Somewhere in the middle of the presence process I became fascinated with the game of Solitaire. I now think that in itself is hilarious, because solitaire, of course, is a game played by and for oneself!

Astonishingly, I would win game after game until the point became not how many times I won, but how fast.

It then became a game a game of strategy and I forgot to check my time score. Even the winning lost its luster as I realized it was the game itself I enjoyed.

The cards started to impact me with symbolism..~if there was a dearth of Queens, I know I wasn’t getting anywhere with no mommas in the picture. Kings became dads and jacks became sons and daughters. All had important roles to play and unless they were there the game was over.

Even the number cards started to weave themselves into endless patterns of interconnectedness.

I know I am on to something here.

In the meantime, Solitaire, anyone?

The Case of the Missing Cat



Three weeks ago I agreed to foster-mom a 5 month old orange tomcat for our local cat rescue league. I already have a year old gray female cat named Sassy, and she didn't like the newcomer ONE BIT. I named the newcomer Hugsly because once on my lap, he was a cuddly little lover.



Once he was off my lap, he was so timid he hid in the oddest places...squeezing behind the fireplace, under cupboards and behind the dryer. His nightly skirmishes with Queen Sassy didn't help matters, as she defended her spot on my bed with the ferocity of a tiger.



Now he is just plain invisible. I haven't seen him in a week and I know he didn't skip out the door. I have been telling myself it will just take time for him to feel at home, but where the heck is he??? I know it's really starting to bug me because last night I dreamt I got up to get a drink of water in the middle of the night and he was in the kitchen.

Where is that cat?

Spring is making it's way here with wild winds scrubbing the trees clean of dead branches and blowing away last year's crumbled leaves to reveal green daffodil shoots. Kneeling in the earth and feeling the soil through my fingers is God's chapel for me.

The first day of 2009 was a shocker. I lost my primary job when the business closed without warning. Did I mention they owed me a month's salary?

On January 12th I decided to once again participate in my my life and attempt the presence process. My 4 previous attempts crashed and burned by session 6.

This time I seem to have one thought burned into my forehead..."NO MATTER WHAT, breathe twice a day."

It's been quite unpleasant and quite glorious and I have no idea where I am going if anywhere at all.

Last week my landlord, who has really been patient with my late rent, asked me to pay in full or leave. I recognise that my lack of moolah is an emotional blockage and as these circumstances come up they are brought in love to help me integrate my childhood.

Happy about a possible eviction? Strange, I knew it wasn't to hurt me, but for my highest good. I looked around at all my stuff, walking from room to room, and mentally cleared it all out. Bunches of twitches and tears and aches bubbled up from the depths during my breathing exercises.

This week it turns out my tax return will cover the back rent with just enough left over to pay the accountant and my landlord is graciously willing to wait until it gets here.

I really don't think there are coincidences anymore.

Spring cleaning has a new meaning for me now.

this is the other one...they were written in 2005.

Poisened
Poisened,
I
Scrape the skin
tender skin
Burning, itching skin
(i told everyone it was)
(an allergic reaction)
to an evergreen.
I know better..it was my heart
trying to protect
The
best of filet
inside my arms.
My mind won't protest
So my body does
Producing Disease,
And
Boils rise,
poisened,
from the tree
tree i pruned
keeping you
from me.
Poisened,
I
Weep.
Like my skin
Poisened from
the touch
of you.
Cryptic,
i know
I speak not
of your death mask
your
deadly grin.
As you touch me,
love me,
poisening
my skin.

When my last computer crashed I lost 7,000 words of a novel I was writing and a few dozen poems. I just found these two tucked away and I'm sure it's not an accident that they appeared in week 5 of my journey inside with the Presence Process...

Poetry,
that boring, hateful word,
Endured, dreamed thru,
in required education
Is no more to be feared
Then clouds,
watched on your back,
Dreaming
Just a thought rhytmn,
undulating
as you let go of necessary
and fall into
being.

When I was 6 my youngest sibling, the only boy and aged 2, received a toolbox for Christmas.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved my dolls and clothes and perhaps an “easy bake” oven but I was obsessed with that toolbox. It had a hammer with a wooden shaft and a bright blue head. There was a little craft table that held cutouts of circles and triangles and squares. The object was to take the color coded blocks and fit them into their proper mates and hammer like hell until they sat perfectly. It was a hands-on jigsaw puzzle for the future male engineers of the world.

In the guise of a good big sister entertaining her baby brother, we played carpenter together.

Valiantly I would hammer a circle into a square with all my heart, twisting and turning the block to make it fit, but even at that young age I real-eyesd you couldn’t fit a circle into a square without bludgeoning it to death. Mine never fit until at least the fourth try, when I finally got the idea to try a circle with a circle, a square with a square.

I had just learned the art of futilely manipulating a person, place or thing, pretending I was helping them in order to get what I secretly wanted.

I guess I’m slow, because it has just come to me that I still have that bright blue hammer and no matter how hard I hit with it, a circle will NOT fit into a square.

You can’t live your today with yesterday’s hammer, no matter how seductively it’s painted.

I woke up this morning with the bare branches of the trees scratching against the skin of the house. The winter wind is strong here, and early mornings are often cushioned in fog. Not this morning though, because the white was falling in glorious snowflakes instead. I sat at my little table by the window, sipping coffee and watching the snow. All was black and white with a touch of green from the holly shrub that peeks above the windowsill. A redbird came to visit...and it was all so perfect and beautiful I thought my heart would burst.

The current took me out so far this time I think I've landed in South Africa or perhaps resting in the South China Sea.

That is the first sentence I've written for my own pleasure in a year, when I stopped writing my newspaper column.

My muse picked up and left, just like Mary Poppins with an English sniff of her aristocratic nose and her umbrella under her arm.

My soul knew I had to stop writing the column, even if my head (and everyone else) thought I was nuts.

Feels good deep inside to write, though this post is just a baby post relearning how to walk.