She's flirting with us, Spring

Short Stories are feeding me lately....with rice cakes at my side...... Mmmmm, mmmm, good stuff, reading and rice cakes. They go so good together. Especially as the sun comes through the blinds and the heat warms folded legs. It's a Friday afternoon and I'm reading in the sun. Pssst, psst, Spring is Coming.....in all her Regalia, lillies and daffodils, svelte and audacious, she's on her way. Little sprites are popping out of the ground; to see them along the path is to be surprised, an instant smile inside. They are sneaky, little messengers, harbingers of long days to come. ....Maybe you'll find time to read a short story or two:

Gryphon by Charles Baxter......is magical! Or John Updike's ("Writing is a way of taming the world, turning the inchoate, often embarrassing stream into a package.") A & P. Let's just say the first one took me by surprise. I get a woman like Helena Bonhem Carter as the teacher in this story, just nutty and beauty and funny and fun! And in the second, a particular grocery store comes to mind each time I read it. I love that story, A&P.

Scout is here, the sun is out, and Spring is flirting with us. What could be better?

Timing

Who am I to write about time that Grand Marshall of our Lives? Not even Einstein could master time or its delicate nature, tick tock, but I figure, time runs me and maybe you too, so why not go for it? Sometimes you just gotta go for it!

I had my first migraine headache on Friday, didn't know it was coming. Might have asked it to let me know it was coming, but I didn't have time in all the doings of a life. Spent the day in bed not that I minded that, just didn't know how to handle the pain except handle it. Get through it, feel it and let it in since it was there to be had.

I am of the belief that things happen when they need to and on time at that. Try baking without timing right. Try jogging for the first time for hours. Try staying too long in a sauna or sitting too long in meditation, you might go loopy. Things have their time and we need to be attentive.

This morning I found the blog I needed called Slow Love Life. Amazing how the author writes with flow and kindness, attention to detail and light examples. I love her! And gorgeous photos. And gorgeous thoughts. And just gorgeousness all over the page. It's akin to the slow food movement, where we attend to love in our lives with slow care, with feeling gratitude, with loving kindness. Slow love life: at first I thought it was going to be about finding love late in life (;-) but then what it really is is just as good! S l o w i n g down certainly makes for having more time. Try it: slow down.

Calling my Dad, I need to attend to time. There's a tacit agreement: Do not call after 8 pm. I do not call after 8 pm. No one does who knows him! And we sort of love this about him, though we might mock it once every two or three years.

When I was younger, I played the "I'm won't read that book" game. That is any book that everyone was talking about I would poo-poo. Taking a superior stance I thought any book that everyone is reading can't be literature and so I won't read it. Well, I've changed. Or at least I picked up one of those books recently and I can't put it down. Ann Patchet's Bel Canto has already taken my breath away and I'm only on page 14. How is it that we get what we get when it's time?

Don't know but it's late now and I've decided to get upstairs to read.

Winter's Om

Yoga and baking and sitting and reading and loving it. Snow in Asheville, incredible walks with Scout and a new book's ideas about how to stay well. I recommend it below.

There's been a lot visiting Barnes and Noble lately: And this book is convincing though I didn't buy it. I've just read it in the store!

The 25 practices include plant-based diet; adequate sleep; exercise; yoga; satisfying relationships; positive attitude, taking cold showers, eating dirt, and dousing in hydrogen peroxide, brewer's yeast, probiotics, alkalizing diets, and detoxification + the placebo effect!

If you like the goodies, contact me on etsy.

Hide & Seek and Other Games on Earth

Cozy Earth, surrounded by several other planets, is one of our Homes. And gravity is our friend. Without it, we'd never fall, swing high or low. Imagine your childhood without a swing, or without falling. Would it be your childhood?

Recently I spent some time with family, the holidays and all. Young and old, my grandmother the eldest, perhaps so the wisest, and my niece, the youngest, perhaps so the purest, these people I come from encapsulated my days.

New Orleans is an interesting city. Only some of it is really familiar, Magazine Street, particularly PJ's coffee shop, other uptown streets, Whole Foods, Audubon Park, Metairie Road and several streets around Louisville Street, but most of it is a foreign place to me. Home is wider and more mysterious than I admit. And when I go home to New Orleans, instead of exploring new areas, we play the familiar games and talk about things that we are comfortable with, not straying too far into the absurd or metaphysical or base. And I love this about family, knowing what you can count on and getting wiser and more grown up about it all in the process.

And speaking of growing up, "Where's Chapman?" is a new game Tina and I started playing with our nephew, Chapman. Hiding behind his arms laying on the sofa, head down, resting perhaps, Chapman is our focus. And I'll say to Tina, within steps of him, "Tina? Where's Chapman? Have you seen Chapman?" Tina plays along, "Chapman? No, I don't know where he is?" "That's funny, I thought he was right here; he was a minute ago." And eventually he'll giggle and giggle, bust out a child's scream but he doesn't yet look up. He's hiding. And we pretend we can't see him, that we don't really know where he is. We keep up the charade, Tina and me, for long enough that eventually he'll look up and we say, "There he is!!!" He slides off the sofa and runs to one of us or to play around again, elated and pleased, winning the game.

He has a Quaker Oats bar in his pocket as we leave his house two days after Christmas. It's blustery out. And gray. But we are going for a walk, me and C-man, and there's no delay. Donning his brown street hat and his gloves, big blue coat and his cool blue batman sun glasses, he holds my hand down the seven steps of his home and we are off. A child's pace on this windy and cold-for-New-Orleans-day worried me. My thinking beleaguered, "it's too cold; maybe we shouldn't go out; this isn't good" but Chapman wasn't bothered at all. His pink face, already chilled, smiled, "What's the worry?"

So hand-in-hand we left the house for the park about several + blocks away. 12 minutes of his child's pace; his steps take four for my two. Step step step step step, Chapman. Step step, me. His little body so little off the ground works what looks like to me so hard, so diligently, so willingly. Wind, what wind, he smiles at me. Cold, chilly, brrrr, what cold, chilly, Brrr, his eyes sparkle.

He's personal, everything is possible, and the park was ahead. Nothing could be brighter.

At two and several months young on this cozy planet, this child, and all children of this age and grace, being innocent don't try to reach into my heart and touch us. It's just what they do. Automatic angel, not yet automatic pilot. We can't guard against them.

The swings were within reach. We found one that wasn't damaged or too babyish. It was time to play "Go Away, Come Here". This is a game I started with him the first time we ever played in this park, on these swings. As I pull his feet up and let go, he descends down and starts moving back away from me. So I say excitedly, "come here, come here, come here." And as he starts returning to me, I match its opposite, "Go away, go way, go way" and he laughs because of course he's coming closer and going away at the same time!

But thinking that only one is possible and not the other is the only game going on here on Earth! We come and go and sometimes don't know the difference. So here we are Chapman and I playing this one and only game, "Go Away, Come Here". His head floats through the air, his body along with him, and the fun is all around us!

I stand in front of him for a while and then I move to his side and while he's swinging up I crouch down and disappear and he's flummoxed. But then I jump up as he swings back and we've created a new game of "Where's Chapman?"
He's laughing all the way, and I feel like the best Aunt in the world. His smile is as broad as the swing set.

After ten minutes or so, other kids start milling around and Chapman's attention is over on them. He's studying them, watching, learning. And then he looks at me ready for his snack. His hands start moving toward his pockets as I lift him out of the swing. We pick up his orange juice, the cup that froze my hand on our walk to the park. Onward.

He walks me to the park bench, and as we get there, Chapman turns around and points to the sun just coming out for a peek. His tiny hands reach out for the sun. Will he touch it? Then tumblesaulting onto the bench, he maneuvers his body into a sitting position, using all his energy, all his might. His hands reach into one pocket and then the other pulling out this stiff Quaker Oats bar and a small and chilly clementine. As I peel the orange, two dogs and an owner mosey by and the dogs sniff close to us, and Chapman reaches out lacking the boundaries that dogs don't belong in his treats. With two sections, one in each hand, Chapman can't open his bar. I take it out of the wrapper and try to pull a piece off for his first bite, but it hardly tears. He's put a clementine section down on the bench, boundariless, and picked up the bar and takes a bite. Or attempts a bite. And he bites with drama, biting down, smiling, too, and finally getting through, drool pooled around his teeth and small laughter, success.

Simple enough, being at the park, with a child, swinging, playing, sitting, sharing, watching, snacking, learning, sunshine. These are things that happen on Earth, thanks to gravity. Chapman ate another section of clementine, slowly this boy eats slowly, and the dogs were around again. "Hi, dogs. No, dogs," he says. And the owner has them far enough away again. He glimpses the sun and smiles, his eyes squinting at the sun. He eats another clementine section and holds to his bar in the other hand. His hat is steady on his head, I sense he's warm enough. When he's gotten half the bar eaten, he looks at me, red faced, chilled perhaps but no bother and says, "Slide, T.T."

So we slide for a while and giggle; he tries this one and that one. He moves up the 'rock' wall with ease. And then we're back on the bench, pulling the half eat Quaker Oats bar out of his pocket again and relaxing briefly before he looks at me with worn out eyes, a bit poofy and states with his heart, "Home, Tracey, Home."

Step by step we return to his home and he sees his Momma and his Sadie, little sister and he's Home. His smile becomes more focused as he's pulling off his hat, his glasses, his gloves and coat, alleviating the cold from his body. He gets nestled back into his family, soon to rest to process oh so much of life on Earth.

And for me, it was an hour away, a world in itself, a little boy at the park. Playing games that we play only on Earth.

Peace!

Ha!

If you've got peace, you're just waiting for the ball to drop or the bomb or the other foot. If you've got peace, you've got potential chaos, can't have one without the other. The universe seeks balance, as the research goes, and it's quite a seesaw being here, one minute up, the next down.

I am in Sam's in Asheville. My friend is with me. We've just finished our health food lunches and are whizzing through the store, pointing to things we like, walking fast, trying to stay out of people's way. We're not speaking, more like pantomiming. The store is large, vast space above us, enough to float lots of balloons, and near the front there are many pointsettias glowing crimson. We were mesmerized when we walked in. My friend has a yen for them.

Our lives are both ordinary and mythical. We live and die, aging beautifully, perfectly, full of wrinkles sometimes, though my friend has few. She seems to be getting younger, and she smiles a wide smile. We both woke this morning I'm writing about, we ate breakfast, making eggs with cheese we bought the day before. Mundane in the buying, though having enough money to buy things more magical. At the same instant we have these magnificent heart beats that pump through all sorrow and winter. We seemed to matter, me and my friend; as in if a bomb dropped it would matter.

As we circled Sam's, other people were too. There were so many items to look at and consider as next purchases. Candy and dog food and soup and almonds and coffee and desks and pillows and computers and honey and stereos and car care products; fruits and meats, veggies and snacks; hot hors-d'oeuvres being served right under our noses. What bounty we live in.

Recording these details, few and perhaps banal to you, is a stance against bombs or being ignored. Saying yes to life, to its peace and then its lack thereof.

GotJunk?

I saw one of those big trucks today. They are blue and roar down the street. Professionals drive them. They pick up old broken televisions, sofas, tables and chairs, auto parts, old computers, printers and their wires. Anything you got, they haul away....as JUNK.
We were walking down the street, me and Scout. It is early morning. The sun is just up. It's chilly and most everybody else is sleepin' in their beds. I'm thinking about what needs to happen today, what I want to get done...........And then it hits me. LOVE.

At 1 pm I had lunch with M. in downtown Asheville. We talked about plans for the future and things that might have happened in the past. We ate noodles and cabbage. We laughed at the ineffable that we tried to speak. How ridiculously easy and passing time.

By 2:30 I had bought a curtain rod at K Mart. My kitchen window has been a movie screen for those walking by my house. I perform for them, opening cabinets, cutting vegetables, drinking water, washing dishes. Whatever I am doing, the outside world seemed to be participating. With my curtain rod and some curtains I made today, I have privacy at home. Wow, that's so much easier and grounding for me.

All I needed was seeing the 1800GotJunk? truck.

Questions I have

Seasons change, 1/why can't I get used to that? It's kind of funny. I want one season, or one kind of day to stay, not to change.

Weather changes. And the Earth bears it all, showing off her power and her beauty every moment. There's no relief from her continued work and play. We are at her effect while she is simultaneously at ours. 2/Why can't we learn how to love and care for Earth?

I just don't get it.

How gloriously we love the play on Earth, the hiking we do, the walk, the run, the pursuit of ourselves as we walk under a blue sky, a gray sky, a wakening sky of pale whites, pinks, light blues. I wanna be more honest about life! 3/Why can't we take better care of the Earth?

How????? How can we love the Earth better? 4/ Can we?
And another question I have is:

5/Why are we so afraid to be honest with each other?

I'm scared of you.
I'm in love with you.
I want you to change.
I want you to stay the same.
I don't love you all the time.
I wish you loved me more.
Keep me safe.
Hold my hand.