Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.
W.B. Yeats, “The Stolen Child.” In The Wanderings of Oisin and Other Poems, 1889.
For more skyscapes from around the world, visit SkyWatch Fridays.
How many ’second’ opinions do you seek? Do you keep asking, keep looking until you hear a diagnosis you can live with ~ figuratively and literally? Or do you stay with the original verdict, no matter how harsh, worrying yourself grey over the ‘what ifs’ and ‘whys?’
Do you throw out the first conclusion because you don’t like the person who gave it ~ abrasive, unsympathetic, aloof? Or do you hope the one who made you laugh is right, and you can sleep again because it’s a word you can understand?
Or is it somewhere in-between? And, how do you know?
We have strayed from our foreseen path. It may be that this is only a diversion and we will merge back onto that long and lonely road, grateful for a brief moment of hope. But, there is a detour on our map showing a different destination. One with, if not a happy ending, at least one more bearable.
It is still a roller coaster I want to exit.
This is necessarily cryptic, it is not my story to tell. I am merely a companion on this journey, a passage that is both private and undefinable.
Check out more Wordless Wednesday photography…
I’ve been tryin’ to get down to the Heart of the Matter
But my will gets weak
And my thoughts seem to scatter
But I think it’s about forgiveness
Forgiveness
Even if, even if you don’t love me anymore…Don Henley, “Heart of the Matter”, The End of Innocence, Geffen, 1989
“The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together.” ~ William Shakespeare
A couple of weeks ago, I began work on several projects I hope will eventually become Christmas presents. I pulled out my crochet hooks, bought skein after skein of yarn, and perused pattern books for ideas.
I first learned to crochet when I was very young from my aunt Sharon. For most of my youth, even well into adulthood, she was affectionately called Snookie.
She was the cool aunt. She was independent and bohemian in an era when these were not considered attractive female traits.
I would spend weekends with her as a kid. She had converted an old door into a dining-slash-coffee table and we would sit on cushions on the floor and eat dinner. The table was painted black with a high lacquered gloss. She had lived in Japan for several years, working as a teacher. As we ate, sometimes with chopsticks, we would pretend we were in Japan.
When I was about 8, she showed me how to make granny squares. As I got older, I advanced from those early lessons, teaching myself more complicated stitches, and how to read instructions and pattern diagrams. Years later, when my grandmother was in the hospital with cancer, I brought a project to her room with me, passing the time as we waited for her to return from surgery. The repetition, the controlled movements, were comforting and distracting at the same time.
Snookie , there to lend support to her mother, was surprised by how far I had taken her simple, granny squares. Through trial and error, from numerous mistakes, hours of pulling stitches and repairing miscounts in patterns, I moved beyond my childish skills.
I find comfort in the movement of the needle, the feel of the yarn sliding through my fingers, seeing order and structure emerge from my own hands. Once I have the pattern, I can ‘feel’ when I’ve made a mistake. I don’t have to think, I can just do. I don’t worry about how everything else is disjointed and out of control. I can escape into the familiarity of the stitches.
As much as I enjoy this craft, I don’t engage in it very often. It becomes a mania, either through one huge project which can take weeks or even months to accomplish, or as now, many smaller tasks, one after the other. Barely taking time to finish the last before beginning the next. Filling my mind with routine, masking the disarray surrounding me.
In less than two weeks I have completed two gifts, am more than half-finished with a third, and looking through my books for a pattern for yet another.
When in this mania, there is little else. Last Tuesday morning, I began a hat for WK. Before I even left my bed, I had begun round after round of stitches. By the time he was awake, it was taking shape. By lunch he could pull it on, letting me check for fit and size. I barely moved from my room. I wouldn’t stop. I had to finish, and couldn’t think about anything else ~ only which stitch to make, when to join a new color thread, and count loops. Before dinner, he had his hat.
No worries, no fear, only the rhythm of the needles, the feel of the yarn, the symmetry of the stitches. All the while the yarn is flowing, the needles twirling around loop after loop, stabbing through each stitch, my mind is focused only on that, only that.
Today I am over at IndieInk.org as a featured artist. One of my photos was accepted for publication.
Thank you, Stacy, I am thrilled to be there!
Please, take a moment to visit over at Indie Ink and peruse the wonderful collection of photos and essays. Be prepared to spend a lot of time reading, and ooohing and aaahing.
For Nov. 8-14
(Shot with a Nikon D60)
The men folk and I went to see the Blue Angels Naval flight demo team in their homecoming air show this weekend aboard NAS Pensacola. We been to at least one show a year since moving to Florida, but this one was particularly moving. Here are a few of my favorite shots from the show.
Trailing white smoke, these skywriters opened the show creating an American Flag that was as tall as the Empire State Building.
Yak52s show off some incredible aerobatics.
Condensation streams off the wings of this F16 as it makes a close pass over the crowd.
The Blue Angel’s travel in a C130 transport, affectionately called Fat Albert. This show marked the final flight the transport will use it’s jet-assisted takeoff (JATO) capability – utilizing eight solid-fuel rocket bottles, four on each side, attached near the rear paratrooper doors. (See the series of four flames from each of the engines?)
Representing more than 60 years of military flight, an F16 fighter jet and a P47 Thunderbolt made several passes.
The Blue Angels perform in F/A18 fighter jets. In close formation, they claim 18-inches of separation from wingtip to wingtip.
On the way home I asked Hubs to pull over so I could get a snap of this incredible sunset.
More Weekly Winners photo galleries can be found at Sarcastic Mom. While you’re there, please leave our hostess Lotus some comment love.
Who needs purple mountains majesty, when you have mauve skies grandeur? (SOOC)
For more skyscapes from around the world, visit SkyWatch Fridays.
I’m struggling with so many precepts. That bad things happen to good people, that we’re only given as much as we can handle, that prayers are answered, blah, blah, blah…
Shit happens. No amount of prayer, no amount faith, no amount of being a good person has changed that.
I used to often quote Nietzsche, ‘what does not kill me, makes me stronger.’ No more. What does not kill me is just pissing me off.
I used to say, ‘it could’ve been worse, we’re blessed that it wasn’t.’ No more. It is worse, it is beyond explanation.
I shouldn’t have to perform untold deeds of contrition for good things to happen for my family. A child should not be a pawn to force me to adhere to a set of rules that are not working… extortion should not be part of this equation.
Do not visit the sins of the mother on my child. If there must be blame, if there must be retribution, it is mine to bear.
Punishing my child will not bring me closer to You… if you are even there.
So close…
Officially the Atlantic Hurricane Season is from June 1 to Nov 30. During the 2009 season we’ve been marvelously free of big storms. Not only did the national weather service record one of the latest storms in history with Hurricane Bill (Aug. 15-24), there has only been one other storm reaching hurricane status so far this year (Fred: Sept. 7-12).
Back in early June the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted as many as 14 named storms, up to seven of those reaching hurricane status, and of those possibly four sustaining major storm wind speeds – which is classified as a Cat 3 storm or worse. (Category 3 hurricanes have sustained winds of 111 mph or higher).
Tropical Storm Claudette was the first to visit the Florida Gulf Coast, but never really found her full voice. We had rain, a little extra wind, but she blew out without creating too much trouble.
Now we’re closely watching Hurricane Ida, and Ida could be more of a problem. She’s only a small Cat 1 (75-95 mph), but Pensacola, where some weather forecasts are predicting landfall, already closed schools Monday morning. A 270 mile swathe of coastline from Pascagoula, MS to Indian Pass, FL is under a Hurricane Warning and Pensacola is smack-dab in the middle of that line.
Typically, winds are stronger to the right or in this instance, east of a storm. I live about 40 miles east of Pensacola. I’m doing the math…
Schools here are staying open Monday morning, but by noon county officials are expected to decide whether to suspend classes tomorrow with landfall predicted sometime tonight or early Tuesday morning.
Oddly, when faced with a pending hurricane, my first impulse is to clean house. I can only guess that my subconscious is telling me that if my house is going to be blown away it should at least be neat first ~ when on any other day it looks like the hurricane made landfill inside.
UPDATE: The local schools are closing on Tuesday due to the impending storm and are also scheduled out on Wednesday in observance of Veterans’ Day. Two-day holiday, woot! Ida’s been downgraded to a tropical storm, so other than some rain, we’re golden.
