minor

 * 2 minor things that, although minor, slightly detract from viewing enjoyment: Joan Allen is an actress. Joan Allen is left handed. Joan Allen portrayed G. O'Keeffe as left handed. G. O'Keeffe was right handed. Joan Allen is an actress (wasn't she able to act right handed?). Actresses who portray hugely pregnant women but flop, flop, onto sofas. I tell you, as soon as I found out I was pregnant I did not flop for a year.

Dorsey, reads, Res, green, fence, flowers

 * Listening to Dorsey Armstrong 'Powerful Women of the Medieval World' and '1215'.

* Reading The Anchoress and Patch Work.

* The Res has such water filling it that there is no beach to the beach.

* Waiting for spring and the green and then feeling shocked when I step out of the door and it is so green.

* A new privacy fence. 

* Last December brought a new resolve to me. I will always have fresh flowers in the house. Initially I subscribed at a local florist which was interesting because their offerings disclosed techniques that I was not aware of and use of little known flowers. Now I find fresh flowers at the market and arrange them myself. Such an injection of joy--to see them first thing in the morning, to have their scents waft over me as I sit at my desk. I pause throughout the day to soak in the shade and hue changes.

apart, goal, rivers, 4, start

* It is okay to fall apart. Tacos fall apart and we love them.

* Goal: to sit in the garden while ignoring, denying, the harassment, the pull, of planty tasks. "You bought us yesterday---get us into the soil!!" "HAW HAW we're the tall thistley weeds come to take over."

* Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day. A.A. Milne

* He has been gone 4 years and yet I still hide my work, muffle my songs, whisper my prayers, filter my words, turn off the movie. Will I ever feel the freedom to live?

*  Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going.

waiting, Culloden, chapter

 * The waiting, anticipation, in the time when weather is coming in and not knowing what weather. Are the fragile leaves on the apple trees safe? Will I need to dash out in my nightgown at midnight to knock snow off limbs to avoid another visit from the tree doctor? Forget the food thing, have I got enough yarn? Will the water freeze in the garage? As to books.......well.

* Culloden..........

* Everybody has a chapter they do not read out loud.

  

cakes, plows, ledge, art, blood

 * Bedtime reading to my children was a joy. I came upon 'The Cupboard' recently and decided to recipe Banbury Cakes......"roll out the pastry to the thickness of a one pound coin".

* Something never before seen :  snow plows on this street.

* Andy Weir : Things did not go exactly as planned but I'm not dead so it's a win.

* "talked off the ledge of a tantrum'

* Leonora Carrington : There are things that are not sayable. That's why we have art.

* Think of your heart as hugging your own blood with every squeeze.

* The modern use of the word 'activist' continues to send prickles of irritation  through me. The Oxford Dictionary translates it as 'policy of vigorous action'. Well now, come on. Are we all, living beings, activists? All day long I am in the throes of vigorous action. I fling off the 6 quilts I sleep under, gyrate out of bed, navigate the dog minefield hallway to retrieve kitchen stored pet food.....and so on until blissful bed at which time I vigorously gasp for air aided by a machine. By the way when am I going to be able to sleep under fewer than 6 quilts? One night recently it was the 6 quilts, thick socks that are yummy chew toys for the dogs, my long puffy black winter coat and what my room mate calls my Eskimo Nell hat....and my Canadian mittens (knitted on one is 'eh').

* Great gratitude and mask covered smiles for the tree guy who in record time came to investigate the downed limbs of the backyard's maple.

blue sheet, amidst, scar, room

 * Lying in bed, the pre-storm morning light sifting through the blue sheet draped  window. The black dog does not stir when I get up so it is back to bed for me--he is my gauge. A bit of a lie-in for us while gems meander through my thoughts.

* The regularity of life amidst upheavals.

* My room mate helps me measure what is proper. "Is it okay if I sit in the sun without a shirt on to healthify my scar?" "Yes." So I do and feel better for it.

*  Observing a room and thinking, "Now, what can I remove?"

sensations, oranges, Blue

 * Myriad sensations. Warmed blankets. Skin pricks. Antiseptic. Rubbing alcohol. Chatter as professionals walk past my cube. I doze unaided by meds...do they pipe the meds in through the air vents? Disappearing for hours, not dreaming. A chest on fire, pierced by a row of barbed wire. I prattle to the driver : "The nurse put my shoes on me." Home, with flowing drains beneath my flat shirt. Icey mandarin orange segments. Meds and dreamless sleep. All this while outside the snow falls and cars sit unresponsive in the negative degrees.

* News the world thinks important does not penetrate. Even after the heavy duty meds are gone all I want to do is eat mandarin oranges segments and sleep. My room mate refills the vaporizers, feeds the dogs, empties my 'grenades', pushes me to drink water. In preparation we decided that he would not ask me how I am but that when my eyes opened I would recite a litany of ...well...how I am. And with every litany I add : "I am not complaining, just reporting." Close my eyes, drift back to sleep. A bomb next door would not disturb my mandarin oranges and sleep. 

* Finally, I am able to open the door to let the dogs out. I inspect my fingernails and wonder how I got the cut on my inner heel. A pale yellow gaunt face reflects back at me. And finally, I take notice of the snow, the cold, the news, the winter garden. I wonder, at last, what is next on this wretched unplanned passage. On my very own A Trip Into the Blue.

morning

 * See you in the morning.....

knives, Feb, arrived, spelling

* Does the direction knives are hung on a kitchen wall denote something?  Horseshoes with ends up or down means something, I cannot remember.

* The early Feb sunshine does much for my non alcoholic spirits. 

* Whatever is said about Amazon, I ordered post-mastectomy garments on Friday and they arrived today in time to be washed and hung on the line.

* There are words whose proper spelling escapes me so I just let them lie if I know I will use them infrequently. When 10, I found one whose spelling I needed to remember in order to escape my mother's wrath. We had just moved back to the mainland and I was at last old enough to write thank you notes and letters to mostly never been met relatives in a small Ohio town where they had remained even as my parents had fled. The town has a challenge to pronounce and spell name derived from a Native American language. I displayed my efficiency by combining my Christmas thanks notes with my January birthday thank you notes--or was it procrastination? Anyhow, learning, memorizing, the spelling of the town name helped me escape my mother's irritation. Two words recently have traipsed into my life to force me to specifically remember their spelling:cemetery (a third 'e' not an 'a') and mastectomy (thought it was masectomy--whoops! there goes the spell correct red line). Yipes! I do hope they will not be used in the same sentence in the near future.

* 'Elizabeth is Missing'

* on a t-shirt : What if the hokey-pokey is what it's all about?

* French takeout : 'le click-and-collect'

* The wee hour coldest air of the night insinuates itself into my stretched out tightly wrapped feet needling me to wake. "Ignore. Ignore." I do and only unignore when the weak outside light flits over the stained glass.

* A gift....'The Dig'

MOTHER, down, dance

* 1971 : "Take down that picture. My MOTHER won't like it."

* I meekly take it down and dispose of it.

* 2017 : I buy again the print ('The Precious Stones:Topaz, 1900). I frame it, hang it. I dance around the room singing the artist's name, properly pronounced. 

direction, days, beautiful, 90's, words, books

* A new direction : I will relate my decisions and thoughts kindly (mostly through e-mail) instead of keeping them 'bottled up' until they become putrid, festering and painful.

* unknown : The first five days after the week-end are always the hardest.

* unknown : It's Tuesday, and you are beautiful. And it will be exactly the same tomorrow...only Wednesday.

* unknown : I miss the '90's when bread was still good for you, and no one knew what kale was.

* Word contractions are not for me. 

* I have jumped on (trudged, sore muscled through) collecting my books into one room which I can keep unheated. Three fourths of them are there now. 

choice, mice

* To cultivate sanity it is necessary to preserve choice. I have a blob inside that must be chopped out. No choice. Proven methods must prevail. No choice. So dear nurse practitioner do not tell me to stop taking notes because at the end of the consultation you will hand me your notes. I write. I get to write. I will do this. My choice.

* No mice since before Christmas....

sit, nap

 * Sitting. Occasionally, a mild harassment wanders in. "I really should be doing _____" And bubbling up. "Nope".

* A nap on the sofa. Dogs as parentheses.

windy, lion, light, shadows

* In the windy yard most of the day, lumberjack hat on tight around my ears, the fur frames my view. I move the carefully placed last fall Granny Smith green bench closer to the house and wallow, sun-bask on it, reading. At intervals I putter at chores--watering the new trees, raking leaves left lying since November, snapping tree limbs blown from their homes, remarking the hoped for patio. What beauty is life!

* Grace Clement : If you live with your head in the lion's mouth, it's best to stroke it some.

* Shafts of light touch a mug filled with yellow mums and greenery at the end of the dark hallway. 

* I consider that I should be productive today then everything that appears urgent gets struck down so that I end up sitting, watching what the moving shadows do.

BBC, painters, cake, German, ice cream

* BBC Scotland :  The Scotland of tomorrow will thank the police of today for a brighter week after next.

* Finnell Brothers Painters : We don't send men, we go ourselves.

* J Farrell : Pretty wild how we used to eat cake after someone had blown on it. Good times.

* from Instagram : Tell someone you love them today, because life is short. But shout it to them in German, because life is also terrifying and confusing.

* A quiet house in the just about dark time when I put on my shoes to buy ice cream. But only buy it if the parking lot has fewer than 12 cars in it.

words, Wigstown, masks, James, settlement, Carey, Firth, watch, market, house

 * I like the sounds of words. Not the definition. Not the political shadows of words. Not the emotional value of these words. Any words in any languages. TROTTOIR, PARAPLUIE, OY VEZ, UMLAUT, SCISSORS, SAYONARA. And British place names....more later. QUALMS

* I want to move to Wigstown, Scotland=bookstores galore. There is also a shop named 'A Box of Frogs'

* Face masks make lovely slingshots.

* Henry James : Never say you know the last word about any human heart.

* "human settlement in Scotland" So, are there any animal settlements on a map?

* Carey Mulligans dimples.

* C. Firth : Qualms are enticing.

* I on a past day watched many rememberings (cannot say 'remembrances' which I believe to be warm and fuzzy things) of Holocaust livers (do not like the word 'survivor'). Tova Friedman, wow.

* In the mere light I climbed into my clothes and attacked the market. Horizontal snow blowing, the only car on the streets, sole shopper, loved it. I keep several blue IKEA bags in my car and load everything purchased into them having carried them around empty through the market. Though stuffed full, they are never too heavy to lift into my car, something I reassure the bagger in the market is possible. At home again, the slamming of the car door energizes the yellow dog  into maniacal barking which tips off my room mate that serious toting into the garage is needed. (I think he likes to see what I've bought.) Cozy on the sofa, aromatic dogs on either side, much biscotti dipping into chai, I listen to Fran Leibowitz.

* Does England continue to name houses? Rose Cottage, Downton Abbey. I decided on a name for mine. 'Midden House'

Whyte, photos, coffee, competence, bibopsy, sofa, cat, challenges

* 'A Morning Poem' by David Whyte

* Collecting photos from Tumblr I realize so many are of fuzzy animals.

* I do not understand the allure of coffee. When it hits my belly I feel uncontrollably bouncy and discombobulated. The steam rising from a cup is cosy and moisturizes my sinuses, yes. The warmth transmitted to my hands while holding a hot cup is arthritis soothing, yes. Now, coffee ice cream=oh, my!!

* 'crises competence'

* Another Monday, another bibopsy.

* Though fed, watered, and pooped, the dogs do not settle while I work at my desk. I admit defeat and wander to the sofa. Minutes later in the quiet of the house I rouse from my concentration and realize they are on either side of me, snoring.

* Someone who comes to my house infrequently is a cat person and does not understand that dogs want to be recognized and greeted by visitors. She has concluded that my dogs are wild and untamed because they descend upon her noisily en masse when she steps through the doorway. How would she feel if I ignored her when she visited?

* 'God only gives to you the challenges He knows that you are strong enough to bear.' So if I were a weaker person I would not be presented with such challenges?

cookies, dents, overcast

* Procrastination : the art of making cookies instead of doing something you should be doing

* Oh, my darling, it is true. Beautiful things have dents and scratches, too.

* A mellow, overcast day with quilts airing on the line.

jot, clothes, chai, maple, perimeter,

* I begin to jot down a quotation but my eyes move onto the next so that  when I read what I've written it makes no sense whatsoever.

* Forster : Mistrust all enterprises that require new clothes.

* OH......chai!!

* After lugging water to the new trees...She : (while he shaves my head outside in the January wind) There was a guy in my class at school whose name was 'Maple' so we nicknamed him 'Sap'. I don't think maple trees have sap. / He : Where do you think they get maple syrup from? / She : Do they? Oh, that's right! (Loss of hair results in brain drain?)

* With yarn (plenty here!) I lay out the perimeter of my big 2021 garden project with nary a thought to whether or not I will be here to garden in the spring.

* My mother would be 'turning over in her grave' if she had one. (Shall I tell you that story someday?) Such sun draws me outside where I use a blue bucket to water the new trees, wearing (me) hole-y see through pajamas. Welllll...Virginia Woolf would wander downstairs to Hogarth Press in her nightgown to work. 

* (no knowledge of origin) : she believed she could / but she was tired / ....so she rested and you know what? / the world went on and it was okay / she knew she could try again tomorrow

drive, mail, day

 * A drive in the sunshine, roommate sitting beside me. When we get to a favorite road I ask him to count the tall sturdy trees, all a type of aspen in a row parallel to the road,  because I never have someone else in the car to do it as I drive (deep irrigation trenches on either side). 32!

* Yarn in the mail and lots of ideas.

* A slow, contentment filled day.

paint, sifts, read

* Elsie de Wolfe:I believe in plenty of optimism and white paint.

* The light at 4p sifts through the back window past the yellow (desert glow) shed, glimmering the book covers and shadowing the shelves against white walls. 

* I live with an editor who does not want to look at what I write so I will just create my own rules and you will need to read what I write at least twice in order to understand what I am saying. No need to worry about his hurt feelings because he will never read this.