A little of this and that while supper cooks...

I am liking these long, slow evenings...

Skyler called, he is on his way out to Inverness.  "Bring coffee..... oh shit Mom, I gotta go!" Well, that was disconcerting.  I let enough time for the officer to write out his ticket, and then called him back with every intention of not talking, of leaving a message to call me back when he was off the road, and he answered.  Worse than a ticket, some ("*&*^%#@^%!!#$%*&*#@$!+? idiot!" is the direct quote) pulled out in front of him, and avoiding them, the tamales spilled.  "Oh well, I can fix them..."   I have an image of him re-wrapping them before arriving.

I have always appreciated his attitude toward life.  He seems so comfortable in it, even when he isn't so comfortable, or circumstances are difficult.  He has the "Taurus" stability about him, accepts what is, deals with it.  I learn from him, often.

There are places where it is snowing, I know.  Here, in California, my corner of it anyway, the sun was out all day long, emphatic that it gets to be out and up longer than yesterday.  In San Francisco yesterday and today, it was gorgeous.  Tonight, back home, I am preparing dinner, and hearing that it is going to freeze tonight.  The chickens told me.

We are driving out to Inverness on Christmas day.  Emerson and Luna will spend the day and night with Wade, and I am planning on some photographing and writing on the edge of Tomales Bay.  I wonder if it will be sunny, foggy, or raining.  Possibly all three.

Tomorrow night I am going first to hear Annie(6), and Thomas(4) singing in Christmas Eve Mass.  Then I am going to our Center for Spiritual Living and hear Wayne sing in the Christmas Eve Choir and candle lighting.  It promises to be beautiful all-around.  

Love deepens.

xoxoLC

Winter Solstice, Poetry,

Do I need to be doing something this morning?  Clean out the car, sweep up the eggshells that the pup pulverized?  I want coffee, have no cream: that's what I reeeeeeeeeeeelly want.  Now.Oh, that's it!  I am sewing this morning.  Sewing a little patchwork quilt.  Working up to sewing Thomas's quilt, practicing, thinking, moving things around and sweeping out the corners of the studio.  Seriously, I do need coffee, though breakfast may serve me better.  More better.
Last night my writer's group, The Scrambled Eggs, were 'featured readers' at a Salon.  Next to a warm little fire, at a beautiful podium made from a Madrone branch, with an appreciative audience, we took turns, read old and new work, were interspersed with musicians, and topped the afternoon off (by evening!) with a delicious potluck dinner.  It was fun and inspiring to witness one another, to appreciate our long-term relationships with one another and with our writing process.  It is remarkable to see and know how we have grown as writers and artists.

Do you feel it?  Can you tell that the shifting is happening?  Can you feel  the turn?  Our favorite ride, Mother Earth, is doing it:  we are not careening through space; we are on a planet, orbiting our star, guided through the Universe.  This is a sacred ride.  A blessed ride.

Yep.  Grateful.

xoxoLC

The Deep Dark Part of the Season

Puppy faces are authentic, day in and day out.I love puppy faces.  Yes, maybe this is the baby-substitution.  But, who cares?  It is almost the Solstice.  The "turn" is almost here,  and I am feeling "the coming."  This year I have allowed my experience to just be, not dress it up, or even put up a tree for Christmas.  Two daughters do not, or rarely, bring my grandbabies over to our house.  Today I am going to write about how this is for me.  
This little dog is growing.  I love the weight of him, his paw in my hand, his head on my foot, his whole self pushed into my side for a nap.  He watches me, "What's next?" which makes me delirious and happy, yet it is also such a responsibility!  When I put him out on the back porch, he spends his idleness chewing the porch broom into a pile of straw.

I grew up in a large, ranch family.  Christmas was a time of extended-family gatherings.  There were piles of food, and piles of gifts which in the long run, equalled 1 gift per child (a disappointment for me, as I intended to open the whole lot).  Aunts and Uncles drank too much and hollered at one another.  It wasn't always fun, but the "gathering" always happened.  As a child I was unaware of the misery of the adults, being engaged in playing with my favorite cousins.  There were family members which I steered clear of, for safety and peace of mind.

As I raised my girls (3), and stepdaughters (2), and sons (2), Christmas was always a hilarious, stressful and fun time.  Wayne and I went to great measures to provide a magical experience for them at home, and we always hauled them off Christmas day to N. California (Humboldt Co.) to Grandma Mary's house, where they romped with their pile of cousins.  Sometimes they had a blast, sometimes not. Sometimes they puked on the way (#3 daughter, especially), once we ran out of gas and had to wait by the side of the road while Wayne walked a mile to get some gas. One year I made each child (at the time, 5 of them) a huge Raggedy Anne.  This trek, while long and exhausting, was always amazing.  Preparing for this was an awesome task, as I look back at it: I made home-made gifts for my nieces and nephews, usually tins of cookies, granola, etc etc etc.

Of course, now the girls are where they are.  It is not my place or desire to judge.  It is my desire to loose the sadness, 'cause I really wish they'd all converge here, regardless of personality clashes, hideous history, anger, disappointment... blah blah blah.  Personally, I love the mess of it all.  My personal belief is that we heal ourselves, and can support each other in healing all of the above.  And, that's me.

My job is my front step.  Sweep it, girl!
As I have said at least a million times, I just love this face.  LunaDog is talented at snuggling in the pillow pile.  She too, loves piles of kids with which to romp.  Oh, does she love to pounce on them when they are in sleeping bags!

When I first got her, my kids said, "Nice Pitbull, Mom!"  There was a consensus that I had really gone off my rocker with this one.  Not true!  She is (just turned 3) quite an amazing Luna. She did scare my grandnephew silly, but he had an awful experience with a Dalmation hurting him.  Luna is a Love.
So, here are my present-day kids, I mean, here are my dogs!  They stand in for my kids.  They are not my kids, they are dogs.  They allow me to gush over them, play with them, go out into the wilds of the vineyards with them, take them to puppy class, learn to NOT chase chickens, even put up with a weird collar or two (no costumes).

We are not putting up a Christmas tree because Emerson would (maybe, maybe not) tear it down (after all, he did knock over the rocking chair yesterday), and at the very least, he would chew through the cords.  Last year Luna got up on the dining room table to investigate the baby Jesus, who knows what would happen this year.

Really.  I just am not putting up a tree.  I do not want to remind myself that the girls won't come over.  My plan is to focus on the Solstice, to gather my fire within, to set my intentions for the coming year, to burn the old in the Solstice fire, again.  

Also, I have come to resent being called "a consumer!"  So I am purchasing very little.  First and foremost, I am a Being.  I love my family: my kids, their kids, my siblings, their kids, the kid's kids, my aunts and in-laws.  My gifts this year will include a home-made prayer of Love and Peace for all.

And I am so grateful for my dogs.  I know that may sound goofy, but they are "mine" and I get to lavish affection, love, and training (myself, mostly) on them without restraint.  All they return for my grumping, mistakes, tears, teasing, sometimes-missing-the-walks... is Love.  And I am grateful.

Thanks.

xoxoLC

A Most Perfect Day

He looks like a walrus to me.  He has a nice, Italian name.  He is Top Cat at Preston Winery.
Hilary bought me coffee (and a piece of Red Velvet Cake), and fixed my camera this morning! Oh, one of the best birthday's ever!  Then I went over to check on Little Mr. Thomas, who was under the weather, who sat all hot and mooshy in my lap.  Then Skyler (my baby!) came by with his newly stitched-up finger and had tea with us.  From there, I headed home... and yes, I made a few detours.  I stopped at the little Catholic Church in Asti, and photographed Jesus, and the Rose window, and the Palm Trees and the Rosemary.  And headed home, again.  Then, I turned west, and drove over the hill to Dry Creek, winding my way out to the Preston Winery.  I love it there: the gardens and vineyards are organic and sustainably farmed.  They are restoring the riparian growth along the creek.  When I take a heavy heart out there, I walk the lane with my camera and am restored.  When I arrive happy, it just gets better.
I bought Hard Montana Winter Wheat which they grow there.  Dana offered to take me for a ride out to see the pigs and chickens, and we rode out in search of them.  We discovered that we both have Ferndale roots (I knew she looked familiar!), we found the sheep and the big white dog who is so proud of his flock (tomorrow!  I will post him tomorrow, as he deserves his own page), the garden, the new chicks... but no pigs.  Dang.  Next trip, I guess.

The light, colors, the sky getting lower and lower made for a perfect day of photography.  It's my birthday.  The biggest gift to myself is a completely unstructured day.  Wandering, meandering, stopping at a roadside veggie stand and purchasing a big butternut squash, putting the change in the jar, every breath, every turn was pure fun.  Oh, and I found the Starlings!
And now, I'm ready for bed!

xoxoLC

Flight

It couldn't be done if it wasn't fun, right?


Wow.  

Wow.

Nothing else to say...

xoxoLC

Starlings, Sheep and "The Rag and Bone Shop..."

I know:  Many consider these starlings a scourge.  I find them fascinating, even though I curse and throw things at them when they are feasting on the first crop of figs in the spring.  Now, they group together in flocks of thousands.  They fly ribbons and tornadoes, balls and spirals. They preform aerial miracles every day and talk jabber all the while.  It must be fun to be a Starling.
Last evening I was chasing Starlings, like a Tornado-chaser.  Maybe you have seen "Twister" a couple of thousand times, like I have; it being my sons' favorite movie for a few years.  There is a scene in it where the victims(oh, I mean heros) are taking refuge from a killer twister in a tool shed (right...), they look up to see all sorts of nasty, sharp farm implements swaying in the tornado, clicking and scything.  Then there is the scene where a Holstein Cow is flying through the air, and the annoying woman (yes, there is one that is not so annoying) cries, "We've got COWS!"  Of course we all join in hoping that she joins the cows.  But anyways, this is as close as I got to my cloud of Starlings, and which was very confusing for my camera, though it is not too bad, as at least we can see part of the flock in flight.

The sheep are my neighbors down the lane.  They hurry over to see what I am doing, standing there by their fence.  As they hurry, they pretend they are not looking.

Then, they turn tail and run!

Reading this morning in "The Rag and Bone Shop of the Heart," I found this by Robert Bly,"Great art and literature are the only models we have left to help us stop lying.  The greater the art the less the denial.  ...Breaking through the wall of denial helps us get rid of self-pity, and replaces self-pity with awe at the complicated misery of all living things."

"Complicated misery..." I wish I'd made that one up first!  Listening to NPR news, I am hearing so much right now about the state of the world through the words of reporters and commentators.  The climate change and state of our planet is at, and beyond, the turning point. Humans are still milling and grappling for power, still in fear that some one else will get more; that another opinion will turn out to be right, and human children are dying of starvation, of war, of torture, of despair... even in our richest-nation-in-the-world.  

"A poem(painting) that confronts denial has a certain tone: it is dark but not pulled down by evil.  It is intense but not hysterical; it feels weighty, and there is something bitter in it, as if the writer were fighting against great resistance when he or she writes the poem."

Thank you, Mr. Bly for these words which aptly describe what I went through with my last paintings.  Resistance to what wanted to come through tore into me.  I whirled through the house, outside, and back into the studio.  It hurts.  There is so much information, in so many languages and images that I may succumb to confusion, or inertia.  

There is much writing and painting to be done with this denial.

xoxoLC

Pie and mountain baby and a little rambling...

After too much of this (on the way to Dev's house... blackberry/huckleberry... safe from inquiring noses, while I am picking up rolls; Wayne is guarding...),
we had to go here, and soak it off!  I love to stare at Forest Bamboo while I soak in an oh-so-nice hot, mineral bath.
Mountain sisters:  it takes more lens than I have to get closer, since I know enough to not go into their pasture...
...look who was in the grass!  The little black rock raised its head!  Of whom did this remind  me?

Yes.  I must take another picture of Emerson.  He can still zip under Luna, but that is starting to lift her off her feet!  I must say, she is not a paragon of patience, and I must also say, I totally relate.  SNARFFF!! she says, Get the hell out of my chair!   Saggies can be grumbly  if bothered after their bedtime, or before it's time to get up...

The sky is blue this morning, sure to disappoint my grandchildren who were hoping and praying for snow.  Brr.  I am too Californian (of the soft variety) to really ask for snow.  Snow is pretty in pictures, but I hate to drive in it, walk in it, or even look at it for too long, as it makes me dizzy coming down like it does.

When my girls were small, and I had to drive miles and miles and miles on frozen freeway with snow swirling in the headlights to pick them up for my "visitation."  Of course, it was required that I drive "half-way" to pick them up, which meant that I had to drive approximately 450 miles, about 200 of which were, in the winter, frozen and snowy.  I am compelled to say, that the drive was the whole way, no half about it.

One year the traffic was stopped  past Mt. Shasta, where the freeway winds up up up, the the snow coming down down down.  I put chains on my Plymouth Fury (aptly named for those years!), with adorable little noses pressed against the windows (not dogs).  We sat in the blizzard, until it quit, and the CHP sent us on our way.  Later I discovered that my brother was in the other lanes, right at the same spot, only headed the opposite direction!  

Chains!  Ha!!!  I really like snow tires.  But in my present life, I do not have or need them, and I like it that way ;-)

Over snow, I much prefer a good, feisty storm at the coast.  I like to be in a cabin/house where I can watch from the warm interior, with the option of racing out and back inside!  Yes, I am decidedly soft.  I love the sounds and smells of a storm, and I sincerely am looking forward to this one... from my living room!!!  With tea.

Now you know... I am a softie.

xoxoLC