Self Portrait Tuesday: Reflective Surface # 3

I posted a different spt last night, but this morning, fickle as I am, I liked this one better. The artist in me is somehow unused to the fixed dynamic of a photo. I want to keep coming back and changing things, like I can with a brush.
When I woke up this morning, the fork […]

Nourishment

I make a promise:
two poems every day.
One for eating, the words
from the pages of a book
like the pomegranate fruit:
fire inside a leathery skin.
And one for pouring out
from the parched place in me:
(that waits for perfect sentence, the witty one,
the just-so observation, the clean narration,
but needs the messiness of each stained seed, just as it is)
words […]

Mischief

It seemed a little too quiet. I was in the dining room (which serves double duty as my office) and Bean was in the living room—within earshot, but just out of sight. For five minutes, ten minutes, fifteen minutes, only silence. An occasional grunt or rustle let me know he was still alive—but there were […]

A list of beautiful things

…that have caught my eye or gave me reason to pause:

This necklace.
This photo.
The chai tea from this place. (I also love the fact that on the wall by the counter hangs a hammer. Below it is a note that reads, In case of emergency, smash anything.)
This found art.
This church.
This t-shirt.
These classes. […]

10 Months

Dear Bean,
You are starting to have a will of your own and it is amazing to watch you attempt to express yourself—your joy, your contentment, your frustration. You’ve started showing both compassion towards others and determination to do things your own way. You love to share now. You also love to go where you are […]

Looking for the right words

Tonight at the writing workshop I try to untangle a little more of the story I am attempting to put down in ink. The people I write with are an mismatched, well read, easily humored crowd who all have day jobs. We sit around eating pretzels, discussing the virtues of present tense. They ask me […]

pieces of my soul

I spend the late afternoon as darkness falls with headphones in my ears. The upstairs neighbor’s music makes me restless. The incessant beat raps a staccato in my head. I long for the quiet of open winter fields. For wind. Bean is finally napping with DH after crying for awhile, tired enough to protest […]

Self Portrait Tuesday: Reflective Surface # 2

There we are, a whirl of color captured in a shop window. This is what we do every day: walk, bundled up, to get coffee. Snowflakes kissing our cheeks, the wool of our hats pulled close against our ears. This is me: the one who takes note of small things. The one who documents with […]

Sunday Mosaic # 4: family

We bundle up in our red jackets, and put Bean in the running stroller which is wind proof and warm, and walk two miles to a gormet market, stopping to get hot chocolate along the way. Inside it has the most wonderful little café, tucked in among isles stocked with wine and marzipan, biscotti, and […]

exhaling

The morning light was flecked with falling snow, and few inches of powder already covered roofs and sidewalks when we woke up. I’ve been waiting for snow, and felt like I could finally exhale, my breath lingering whitely in the air. After a long week of fun-house ups and downs, things felt mostly even today. […]