Fibonacci Me*

One is the loneliest number
One unexpected hug from Bruce
Duality, Yin/Yang, Separation – two
Chakra 3 – Manipura – the city of jewels – bane of this lifetime
5 beats to the Turkish drum rhythm that kicks my ass
Lemniscate, mobius, infinity – 8
13 years of puppy kisses
21 Jump Street
Atomic weight of selenium - 34
55 – age at my next publicly celebrated birthday
89 – number of average woman paces to circumnavigate Stonehenge
# slides to section an entire mouse embryo 144
233 – BFF
377 number of menstrual cycles to reach my cronehood
Macintosh Quadra 610
987 KISS FM
MN 610 from Coon Rapids to Uncle Tiny’s house
$233 for my first djembe
‘Man is like a breath. His days are like a fleeting shadow’ Psalm 144
89 published in Genes and Development
Sammy Hagar I can’t drive 55
#34 Walter Payton
21 emancipation from tyranny
December 21, 2012 Mayan long count 13.0.0.0.0
Pieces of eight
Leonardo’s Vitruvian man - five
Mother/maiden/crone 3
Chromosome 2 murine Adenosine deaminse
‘Of what significance is one’s own existance’ Albert Einstein
The beginning, the creator, the one.



*This is part of a larger piece exploring how mathematics is related to life. I have always been intrigued by Fibonacci numbers – numbers in a series where any number is the sum of the two preceding it. They are found everywhere in nature from the arrangement of seeds on a pinecone to the gentle spiral of a nautilus shell. I began to wonder how they might apply to me, how they might define me.


verison 1.0    3/08

Small Stone #31

There is an art
to true listening
that makes me
feel lovingly held.

Untitled

I want the world to shut the fuck up and listen!

Not because what I have to say is important.

But because we have become a nation of talkers
with no one listening.

And lord forbid you open your mouth to contribute
cuz there is always someone right there ready
to talk right over you until you are quiet
or stick their boot in your open mouth
to leverage higher ground from which to caw

LOUDER

loooooooonger

with absolutely nothing of value to say.

Yammering until my head escapes into somewhere quiet

Squawking until everyone with something interesting
to say has been silenced.

Until we are all just a cage of starlings
nattering on that no one even hears.



v 1.0

Penultimate Small Stone (aros)

The next to last
I savor you
knowing that
there is still
one
more

Small Stone #29.2 (aros)

Listening to the whistling
noise my nose makes
is not a pleasantness
but it is wonderfully
off-key

Small Stone #29 (aros)

I had a wicked good lunch yesterday with a couple of friends.  Not unusual, these days I lunch with friends a lot more than I did when I was working.  I was lucky while I worked, I lunched with the same friend every day.  He just happened to also be my boss.  


The feeling created by yesterday's lunch however lingered long into the evening like acacia honey straight from the spoon.  Slowly dissolving and creating new sweetness hour by hour.  Sometimes tasting laughter.  Sometimes the mossy depth of thought.  Sometimes the simpleness of being so well heard.
  
And today I bounced up all Tigger-y.  Better for it.  Still capturing faint whiffs of what was a perfect afternoon.

Small Stone #28.2 (aros)

leaves float down

like snow amidst

the flowers of 

my tea

Small Stone #28 (aros)

The dove startled 

from its slumber

in the pine tree

by the light

flies blindly

into the window

again and again.

Small Stone #27 (aros)

I want to be four again

when I could curl into 

any available lap 

whenever I wanted

and be safe and loved.

Small Stone #26 (aros)

Grateful for gently rising 

butterflies of travel

for something to plan

and for a big purple 

suitcase of my own.

It's been 2 weeks shy of 3 months since I walked away from the lab.  I haven't really thought about it all that much.  There is still a sadness about it.  A biggish hole in my chest and in my head that used to help me know who I was.  Without that I am kinda struggling to figure that out.  Too many days spent watching TV and numbing out so that the question would stop asking itself or at least get quiet enough so I could see what the Simmons family is up to.  (Could be worse.  Could be the Kardashians).  

Today I had to dig around in the severance paperwork for some insurance information.  They were still down in the basement, sealed in the moving boxes where they have been since November.  Those documents make me feel horrible.  The way I imagine Robt E. Lee felt every time he saw Appamatox Courthouse.   Made me feel that despite my best efforts, despite all the time and energy I gave to it, I still failed.  Those boxes are a little cardboard monument to my failure.  

I understand all the new-agey stuff some of you are thinking - that greatness is born out of failure.  I get that something else is coming.  But with no notion of what that might be, no passion driving me in any direction I am just circling mindlessly - and I HATE it.  

I hate having nothing to do.  Or having so much to do that it is incapacitating.  It is an oxymoron of the finest kind.  I have never had the time to do anything more than squeak out what needs done before it was back to work.  I am used to knowing what needs done and doing it.  But I can't seem to figure out what needs to be done?  Nothing NEEDS to be done.  There is plenty of time to get it all done.  So nothing gets done.  

AAAGGGGGHHHHH!!!!!!  Today is the pivot point in my six months.  The next three are going to be different even if it means I have to chuck the TV out the window.

Small Stone #25 (aros)

Still feeling all hurley

guts all curled up

like a viper

waiting to strike

The Four Fucking Crossroads of Hell and Waiting on the Devil

My brother Phil uttered that sentence while we were stopped at a flashing red light in some boondock flat part of Ohio.  It laid me out.  I mean gasping for air laughing so hard that I thought I might pass out.  Yeah, I know it's not that funny out of context.  To me, it was pure genius.  

Little did I know that I would be standing at the real Crossroads a couple months later.  Not the metaphorical crossroads.  But THE Crossroads.  The junction of US 49 and US61 in Mississippi.  Let me back the story up.  When Phil uttered that sentence I had never heard the legend.  I heard it from a waiter in Memphis last Christmas while I was at Rum Boogies chowing down on red beans and rice and fried green tomatoes.

Story is that famed bluesman Robert Johnson met the devil at that crossroad and traded his soul for fame and his mad guitar skills.  A number of other blues legends hail from near there lending credence to the idea that the devil makes this deal frequently.  That was too good to pass up.  So I trekked down to Mississippi to check it out.  Dusk fell as I found the right junction.  Sadly a McDonald's sits there now.  And a little bar which feels more in keeping with the legend.  

No devil.  No promise of fame.  No mad guitar skills.  But I do wonder how Phil knew about the legend.  Or did he?  And should I have met the devil, would I have made a similar bargain?  If a demon had offered me a Man Booker prize, or a Stephen King like popularity, or a poetic voice like Mary Oliver would I have taken it?  What if he had offered me something closer to my heart?  What if he held out the hand of love?  Would I have danced with him then?  

I don't know.  Because on that dark night there were no specters.  No carpetbag full of dreams.  Just the same flashing red light where we had paused in Ohio.  

Small Stone #24 (aros)

Pondering how hair

the bane of my youth

for its straightness

a place where curls go to die

becomes a head full of 

writhing knotted 

pillow serpents 

when I sleep on it wet

Small Stone #23 (aros)

In the dark hush

of 3AM

The hallway

floorboard 

brays, 

there is no one 

but me to hear 

this obstinate

plank

I sway there in the hall

as this jackass

hee haws beneath

my feet.

That's a #2 Thought

People's first response to hearing about my spiritual path is generally one of two:

1) They cross themselves sure that I am of the devil

2) They think it is cool.  Followed up by Oh, I wish I could do that.

The people who think #1, I stopped worrying about a long time ago.  In a country of Puritan conquerors, you're bound to run into quite a few of those.  

But those #2 thinkers pluck a string inside me and set it vibrating.  I wonder why that is?

 How is this any different than when I look at my friend Suz and think Oh I wish I looked more like that and then flop back down on the couch and grab the remote.  It really isn't.  That yearning to have/be/do something without a single movement toward actually having/being/doing it.  They are exactly the same.  

The notion in my head, and most likely the #2 thinkers heads, is that there is no work involved in achieving what you yearn for.  That Suz achieves her lithe form without any exercise at all.  That she was just one of the lucky few born with that form.  I won't deny she has some good genes in that regard, as opposed to the German farmer frau genes I have that tend more toward thickness and bat wings (which would be an awesome form of welcome if I were Bruce Wayne).  But I know for a fact that the girl runs every day and works out with a trainer.  That is what she is willing to do to achieve that shape.  When it comes to exercise, I am not highly motivated.  Once you wind me up and get me going, I will kick some ass.  But that getting started is just a monster hill full of entropy for me.  

And I suspect the same is true of all #2 thoughts.  That the people who yearn for more psychic prowess, or active Dreamtime, or mad healing skills are just staring at a big ole hill and telling themselves they can't.  When in truth the only thing stopping them is that they won't take the first step.  For me putting on my shoes with the intention of hiking or working out is my first and hardest step.  KY girl remember.  Well, it took a REALLY big foot up my ass to finally make me start climbing the hill of my spiritual journey for real instead of just circling the base where I bought Tarot cards, but never used them.  Ditto crystals.  Ditto books *ackgasp* an unread book?  Because I was pretty much stuck in the I-know-I-need-to-go-there-but-don't-know-where-to-start mode.  Pssssst.....wanna know the secret?  START ANYWHERE! 

Those toys that littered the bottom of the hill were just a pretty hook to make me curious.  Climbing that hill is hard work, but it is also the most satisfying thing I have ever done.  The view is ever more spectacular as I go so that it makes me want to continue.  I am not making this trek for anyone but me.   The toys that were so cool at the beginning are no longer important.  Don't get me wrong they are still fun and sparkly, they are just not the goal.  It is on that hill that I meet myself.  It is there that I get a chance to conquer fears.  It is there that I learn compassion beyond what I had imagined.  

So now it's time for me to take the process that works for my spiritual hill and apply it to the hill I am less inclined to tackle - the exercise hill.  The #2 thought.  Because really it is just a bunch of #2.  Isn't it.  Start anywhere.  Put on your shoes.  Go!

Photo is of my niece Sabine in Manuel Antonio Beach, Costa Rica.  She is the best hill climber I know.

Small Stone #22 (aros) Small Stone in Truth

Far below Tintagel Castle

along the dewy Cornish cliffs

is a cave.  

Merlin's Cave

In the back of the cave

was a stone.

Unremarkable in color,

shape, or size.  

It's sea-rounded edge

fitting comfortably 

within my palm.

This one in my pocket,

another one removed

from there to take its place. 

Quartz clear as water 

tucked into a fissure. 

Merlin's Cave below Tintagel

No magician I 

Dear Merlin.  

No treasure seeker.

No grave robber.

Just a maid

honest and true

bound to the same 

earthly majicks as 

you once were

come to honor you.  

Small Stone #21 (aros) Green Tea with Acacia Honey.

Gets me thinking 

about bees 

industriously flitting 

from bud to bud 

among the thorns 

to collect the nectar, 

to take to the hive, 

to seal it in geometric cells 

from which it is later 

harvested, 

packaged and 

shipped to a store 

where I blithely buy it

and store it in a cupboard

so that on a random, 

cold, and snowy

day in late January

I can taste 

the sweet promises  

of summers past

and yet to come

Small Stone #20 (aros)

A cold air blast stirs

me from the mist of dreams 

followed by the press 

of dress shirt buttons along 

the length of my back

the comforting feel of his

hand snaking around my waist

palm coming to rest on my right breast

I worry, half awake that he will

wrinkle his shirt before work

even as I slide back into sleep.

When I wake he is gone

again

My heart taking a moment

to catch up to the truth 

my head knows

It is but a flesh memory

Polished, resurfaced and

flushed out into my dreams

by the simple slip of a blanket that 

exposed bare skin to the cold.

Small Stone #19 (aros)

I sit down to meditate

only tears

caught in the place of them 

I let them fly

the tracks flowing 

down my cheeks

my chin a river delta

where they collect

the shift has started

I no longer center

but outside watching in

gulping deep breaths

exhaling long oooooooooos

calmly letting go 

An Evening Prayer - of sorts

Saint Brendan

Sedna

Neptune 

and Ashera

i'm feeling a little bereft tonight

my craft is small 

the waves are mounting

not an anchor port

but a following wind 

a star to navigate by

and if possible

a mate to laugh me thru it

Small Stone #18 (aros)

Like the ivory 

white dominoes 

of my childhood

they fall

singly

or in groups

And I wonder when all 

my fears are toppled,

what will remain?

My Vision of Leadership

we all lead

in our own way

Not all of us

need the

well-lit stage

we lead

by offering 

a sure hand up

off of the ice

to a friend

we lead by

being patient

with those people

who were our 

first teachers

when they begin

to stumble

we lead by 

choosing the 

best life for 

ourselves

even when 

no one else 

understands

that choice

I am already 

quietly leading.

Small Stone #17 (aros)

Small sliding steps

tentative

listening for any 

groan or creak 

that means 

breaking thru.

Talking Some Bold Steps

Impromptu letterboxing with Sno' today.  Cincy Nature Center Long Branch Farm.  What a cool place.  Enough to make me want to go back and check out the rest of CNC. 

Anyway......4 boxes the lure of First Finders on 3 of them.  Sno and I are not very adventurous most days.  We are both experienced women (read middle-aged) with a history of sprains, strains and other trail injuries.  I myself have an affinity for taking sticks to the head.  

I don't know what got into us today.  Full of all kinds of hellfire.  The trail crosses Long Branch Creek 4 X.  Of course when I printed the clues, I thought to myself - Self there will be bridges across those creeks.  Wrong!  No bridges at all.  WTH!  The creek was half frozen in some spots and free flowing in others.  Hard to tell where it was good to step and not a good day for wet feet or worse.

Normally we two fraidy cats would have called it quits and fetched other boxes.  Instead we just went for it.  We found a wooden plank that would get us across the first crossing (no ice mostly wet).  We opted instead for a more direct route and we used a stick to pound the ice off the rocks and skipped across easy peasy with dry feet.  

The second water crossing was one of Sno's shining moments as she skated fearlessly across the dubiously frozen creek like Michelle Kwan.  WTH!  I certainly wasn't gonna let her get the better of me.  And even tho I have a hundred pounds on her, I followed suit.  Across 2.  

The third water crossing seemed too risky to both of us.  Perhaps a bit slushy.  Perhaps deep if you broke thru the ice.  But we reasoned 4 water crossings put us on the side of the creek we were on now, so Sno' suggested maybe we could bushwhack up to the ridge and find the trail from up there.  Again WTH!?!   Who are these women and where did they get the cahones to cross semi-frozen creeks and scamper straight up muddy hillsides thru brambles and leaves that would previously have sent them scurrying to the nearest Starbucks for lattes (no fat, one Splenda + 1 regular).   

Of course Sno was right and we managed to score all 4 boxes but only cross the creek twice.  Although now that I think about it, I 'm pretty sure we crossed more than the creek.

FYI - photo was taken at Williamsburg Community Park.  We were there too.

Small Stone #16 (aros)

Their skins are creamy yellow

freckled brown

seemingly perfect

I should have known

absent of smell

they are short

sharp, green

on my tongue.

Haven't had a 

good banana 

since Costa Rica

where every banana

was perfection.

Tomorrow I will eat 

an apple instead.

Small Stone #15 (aros)

Little purple 

butterflies

even tinier 

black hearts

Happy magic 

dancin' chucks

Dance With Me

The myth of family becomes so pronounced in late November into January.  The vision all Normal Rockwell.  A vision that hardly matches my own.  My family truth is a faint sheen of dust.  It can't be wiped away, but that it will settle back into place again.  

If the dust cannot be removed then maybe I can learn to dance barefoot through it.  Kicking up motes into the light where it floats around me.  Whispered words of old stories I no longer believe.  Dust of dead memories made beautiful swirling there among the sunlight and barefeet.  

And when I go, the only evidence to future eyes of my having been here will be the Arthur Murray dance steps left on the dusty floor.

MLK Birthday

I stumbled across the Lorraine Motel last winter.  I couldn't figure out why the garishly colored turquoise and orange concoction seemed so familiar to me.  I only figured it out when the MLK museum came into view.  

Like most of America, my world in 1968 is viewed in black and white.  From the images floating on my TV to the grown-up discussions of race happening three feet over my head.  My child world was awash in Barbies, Red Rover, sunshine.  Awash in color.  I had no understanding of the event.  No memory of it.  

As I became older and saw images of this place in Memphis they were always grainy black and white.  Ghosts of years past.  It took a moment standing there in the December sunshine to reconcile the colored building I was seeing with the black and white one in my head.  To understand that the black and white view was an illusion.  That they are one and the same.  

WE are not black and white.  We are one and the same too.  Vividly colored individuals of infinite beauty.  

Impressionist Lunch (aros #14)

I am the older

but little brother 

towers over me

more me with him 

more safe there 

than anywhere.

Photo hunt fake outs

Thrum of fists on table

#5 on high score list

Good burgers

buns too big to eat

Waiter....waiting....waiting Phil at Lambeau July 2010

GO PACK!

Fist bump.

Oregon's floor covered 

in pine trees

I could sleep there

Woman with the Jar Jar Binks

voice Wesa gonna eat......

Coke snorting laughter

not quite 

but almost

someday I will catch him

Just one more game

Hugs 

back to my quiet den

for more winter

Dream Chado (aros) #13

I will not let

you kill my dreams

But I would share

them with you

in a simple dream tea chado*.

Serve them up

in small steaming cups

for us to sip and savor

 

I would shed the

makeup, the kimono

and meet you barefoot

in front of the brazier

 

Sit cross-legged

with you on the tatami

while they steep

Pour them into

mismatched bowls without

ceremony or ritual

 

What do dreams need with these?

 

Breathe in the delicate

fragrance of each

Roll them about on 

our sometimes too

facile tongues

Taste their truth

Swallow them whole

And let them nurture new

dreams in our bellies

 

I will not let you kill my dreams

but I would share them with you.

* A chado is a formalized Japanese tea ceremony.  It has a very ritualized procedure that can last an entire afternoon

A Room of One's Own - A Rant

I don't know what I expected.  Some sort of magical enchantment in the words perhaps.  Something that would drive my writing like Frankenstein before the torch-wielding villagers.  A pleasant romp through the English countryside.  

What I hoped to find was insight into the heart of someone I love and admire.  Not that my love or admiration would be diminished or elevated by what I found or didn't.  That is the scientist part of me that always wants to know.  The humanist part that wants to know why this was significant to you.  

But yesterday's reading happened at a strange confluence of events - Sarah Palin's rebuttle of any incitement of the Tuscon shootings, the arrival of an unsolicited Frederick's of Hollywood catalogue and Virginia Woolf.  By happenstance then the focus shifting to the feminist aspect of the work.  On a different day, I might have thought to myself WOW!  Women have come so far in 100 years.  But, instead I think we don't seem to have come very far at all.  

It is still too much about looks and not enough about true heart and especially not enough about brains.  Too much shifting and no ownership.  A pretty puppet put forth to attract our Madison Avenue brainwashed asses and to re-affirm the idea that an entire gender is not really capable of true intelligence or leadership.  

Open your mouth little girl and swallow some more of the tasty Kool-Aid.  

Cause when you do, you can shop and dress in impractical clothes simply to please a man.  Really?  I mean where is there a catalogue of men's clothes designed just to titillate women?  Why do I need towering CFM heels and crotchless panties to entice a man to my bed?  Why is this still the single thing that's put forth as sexy?  Grrrrrrrrrrr.....

And then there is Woolf.  The cool and rational thoughts calming irate thinking to a simmer.  A nice slow simmer.  The kind that can reduce the toughest thoughts to tender tasty bites.  The cauldron that will hold those disparate thoughts and make a meal of them.  Something nourishing.  Something that feeds me.  

Small Stone #12 (aros)

If an angel 

only needs 

the head of a pin 

on which to dance, 

then why the FUCK 

does a demon thought 

require my entire head?

Small Stone #11 (aros) Sabine's Dream

She has carried it with her across four continents

and always, always in her heart.  Those words of Woolf's that made her so determined to live a different life than the one the world planned for her.  

I have not been curious enough to pick it up over the past ten years.  But today, suddenly curious to see what she sees.  Curious enough to drive to the library despite raging snow.  Curious to know if I can find a similar magic to what she did between its covers.  

Or maybe some new magic.  

Please,  please just don't let it be none at all.  Let there be a spark left there for me.

"No need to hurry. No need to sparkle. No need to be anybody but oneself."   - Virginia Woolf  A Room of One's Own

Small Stone #10 (aros)

I see him perched along 

Whitewater Creek.

Watching

Waiting

Is he waiting for me?

I stand rapt

yearning to have him 

forever.

And I ask myself

Which is more important

The having 

or the experiencing?

I decide.

I hum 

and turn back 

to watching.

I have been doing a lot of hiking recently.  Hiking for me always involves a casual kind of birding.  In the last week I have seen countless red-tailed hawks (one at close range feeding on a deer carcass), 2 red-shouldered hawks, 2 pileated woodpeckers (those big ole Woody Woodpecker guys) and a half dozen herons.  Today's find, a bald eagle, happened on Blue Creek Road where it crosses over Whitewater Creek in Brookville, Indiana.  Alas, no camera.  

NaSmaStoMo #9 (aros): Women's New Years

Words powerful and wise

woven into stories

then steeped in the cauldron of 2011

by the graceful hands of friends

NaSmaStoMo #8 (aros)

Last night I dreamed

of a guitar

with a spiral staircase

of a neck

Wondering

if it would 

fret me out into 

the universe as 

I played

into a galaxy

that is all my own

NaSmaStoMo #7 (aros)

A multicolor festival 

of giggle dots

rain down on bisque 

held in hands

both little and big.

Captured joy.

NaSmaStoMo #6 (aros)

One of my friends is thinking 

about putting away his trains.

This little town where he is god 

and the people love him

I dissuade him 

The boxes will come

soon enough for them

They will come 

soon enough 

for us all

From a real set of emails.  And uncharacteristically dark.

NaSmaStoMo #5 (aros)

East Fork Lake ice

window of the 

water house below.

Hold a piece up 

in front of the sun

it becomes my window too.

I like pond ice.  Like ephemeral windows to other worlds.  I took this photo at East Fork Lake.  It is what inspired the small stone on this day

I Really Wanna Know - Who Are You?

Ever since the last hissy fit of 2010 I have been all too aware that the Christmas cookie binge has led to a certain expansion of my caboosage.  So, trying to move my feet more. Tupperware hunting has been good motivation for that. Maybe 15 miles in the last 3 days. Of course all of it uphill :-)   Today I was at East Fork Lake to snag what I hope are the last of the EBTS boxes.  Of the five boxes I had clues for, I only found one.  Kinda disappointing in that regard.  But still nice hikes down to the lake on old country roads.  

EFL, aka Wm H. Harsha Lake but no one calls it that, is a manmade lake created by the Army Corp of Engineers in the 1970's.  The road I was walking on went straight into the lake.  I found myself thinking about the people displaced from their homes by that lake as I walked.  There were rumors that the entire town of Bantam lay at the bottom.  (FYI - Not true according to the retired deputy sheriff I met while walking).  Still there was ample evidence that some nice homes had once been on this road -old stone posts, a stone gate, a driveway, a rock wall.  Old farms had probably once dotted the valley.  Rumors of a couple gold mines (which did prove to be true according to the Army Corps.  I pondered how much that would suck to have to just leave because the county said so.  What kinds of deteriorating buildings were below the surface of the lake?  I couldn't seem to boost my mind off that subject.  Not that I tried very hard.  

Walking is good for that.  It gives me time to ponder stuff.   

Anyway.  I couldn't find my compass today ::hangs head in shame::  The lanyard is probably still covered in poison ivy cooties, so perhaps it's for the best.  Instead I am using the trusted Squishy (GPS) in pedestrian mode.  She can get me within 45 degrees and that's really all I need.  So Squishy is riding in my pocket and powered up.  I hear her beep a few times but don't think much about it.  I reach my landmarks for the letterbox and pull her out so I can get a rough directional heading.  

I left her on View Map mode..... and oddly now she is on keyboard.  Hmmmm....  Not too unexpected I guess.  I walked a ways and she was bouncing in my jacket pocket a bit.  Before I poke her back into View Map, I notice that there are letters in the window.  All the hair on my arms stands up.   

W.E.R.O.K  

Master puzzler that I am, my brain immediately begins to toy with it.  We rok.  Wer OK.  We R OK.  That last one amplifies the goosebumps.  

We are OK.

Standing there in the woods by myself and yet not quite alone.   Whoever it was, it's good to know you're OK.  Next time could you please use pre-approved channels to relay this info cuz you scared the peepee outta me with that little trick in broad daylight no less.

Oh some of you may poo-poo the notion.  But, upon investigation, to get to the keyboard screen from View Map would take 4 deliberate and correct choices.  Inputting the letters 5 more.  And anyone with big fumble fingers like yours truly can tell you that hitting the right letter keys to spell your intended destination is difficult on a good day.  Thank Gawd for that eraser key.  The odds seem stacked against this as a random event.  Not that I can convince you.  

I just want to know who it was.  Did my pondering about the displaced families call in an energy to give voice to them?  Dunno.  

The photo is of North Campbell Road or what used to be N. Campbell Road.  Now it is an overgrown hiking path to the lake.

Sankofa Sunset

Sankofa is an Adinkira symbol (as my faithful letterboxing blog followers already know from the Dozen Dinky Adinkira Stamp Series).  It comes from the Akan "se wo were fi na wosan kofa a yenki." Literally translated it means "it is not taboo to go back and fetch what you forgot".

Last night as I was leaving to go to dinner with a friend I saw what looked to be the sky on fire as the sun set over the pond near my house.  OKOKOK it's really the holding ponds for a sewage treatment facility. But it's still pretty if one doesn't think about it too much. Like a little sankofa bird, I went home to fetch my camera. Snapped off this picture and still made dinner on time.  While it is not quite as spectacular as the initial observation, it is still a remarkable photo.
  

NaSmaStoMo #4.2 (aros)

I move through the woods

pine needles and sticks 

collect in my hair

I am becoming 

part of the land

rather than just 

moving thru it

a feral child

at last

NaSmaStoMo #4 (aros)

BOOM

I freeze and flatten

like a fawn.

suburban child I

no drug gang fire

or banjo backwoods

just the pond ice

breaking up

NaSmaStoMo #3.2

I am participating in International Small Stones Month during January.  A short piece of conscious writing about something you choose to experience that day.  I was just going to post them without explanation, but some of them will be better served if you have context.  

Mostly I am hoping that if I chuck enough stones into the pond, they will rile the waters enough to bring up big fish and maybe I can catch one of those slippery suckers.  

Fuggedybuggid

A couple weeks ago I was reading Stephen King's On Writing or maybe it was From a Buick 8.  Well it was definitely King. I came across a word in his conversation that I didn't know.  For those of you who haven't read King, he is the master of the vernacular and idiomatic language.  His dialogue reads like one you might hear at the bar, or the game or the grocery.  It is not the high blown language of an Oxford don, but the real language of the American middle and lower classes.  

In order to carry the inflection and tone, his words are spelled accordingly.  If you sound them out, you will hear what I mean.  Anyway when I sounded it out over and over trying to figure out what it meant, my ears heard over and over fuggidybuggid or fuggidybucket.  So I started saying it in my head in situations that seemed to warrant it.  Car on E - fuggidybuggid.  No job - fuggidybucket.  Trip up the stairs - fuggidybuggid, fuggidybuggid, FUGGIDYBUGGID!  I like the way it sounds.  

A couple weeks ago one of my friends posted a blog and about half way through it he used a word Fuhgeddaboutit.  Not fuggdiybuggid.  Fuhgeddaboutit (said like Joe Pesci or Tony Soprano).  That is the word King meant although I suspect he used fewer letters in his version.  I laughed so hard I almost peed myself.   

In my defense, and yes Your Honor it IS a weak one, I don't like mob/mafia/gang films.  I know about the Sopranos, but have never seen an episode.  I saw Godfather Part I under duress and against my better judgment.  The same is true for Pulp Fiction (or most Tarantino films), Jersey Shore, Road to Perdition, Scarface.  Don't like the Fran Drescher voices that grate my ear drums like cat's claws.  Don't like the way of life.  Really don't like the violence.  All that to say, I have not heard that phrase as often as some.  I told you it was a weak defense.

I told my brother Phil this story yesterday.  He didn't think it was as funny as I did.  But then comedy is outside my bailiwick.  In telling him the story, I realized I liked my word better than what King meant.  I used it all day.  Sure Phil got tired of it.  I don't think it's going away any time soon.  So just fuhgeddaboutit.    

NaSmaStoMo #3

My childhood 

was carefully 

bordered in 

yellow angles

with a

high gloss

shine.

I don't usually explain writing, but this snippet, this stone if you will, is about my innate love for National Geographic and everything I found in the pages there. I loved the gloss right off the pages of every issue.

NaSmaStoMo #2

Lids slitted 

Dreams resting on 

my shoulders

NaSmaStoMo #1

The skin 

remembers 

long after the mind 

forgets.

I got this tattoo a couple years ago to honor a friend and to remind myself that what is important is right NOW.   It seems a good way to start the month of NaSmaStoMo.

May the Creator put enough stones in your path that you realize when it's smooth.