it's joyful & triumphant...

This morning I had a mini Christmas moment with Hannah & Emmeli. We were willingly transported into familiar surroundings of yule tide gaiety while making applesauce & apple muffins. The aroma of cinnamon & apples permeated the landes as we admired the long awaited snowy vistas, and without warning, a Peanut's song, stored on my ipod (not from A Charlie Brown Christmas, but from The Royal Tenenbaums soundtrack) made its entrance into the scene and worked its magic. I gladly recieved this Christmas combo even if it was being delivered a little late, it was by all means necessary for the completion of winter, and now I can march confidently into spring being satisfied and wholly restored to what is a good and right and natural order of events.

power to the people...

“The Wart did not know what Merlyn was talking about, but he liked him to talk. He did not like the grown-ups who talked down to him, but the ones who went on talking in their usual way, leaving him to leap along in their wake, jumping at meanings, guessing, clutching at known words, and chuckling at complicated jokes as they suddenly dawned. He had the glee of the porpoise then, pouring and leaping through strange seas.”
~T.H. White, The Once and Future King

tree in the wood...

I like the Pixies and big snowflakes and cozy places and iced coffee and fingerless gloves- pretty typical for someone my age, I think. I never realized until now I was so main stream. I used to like oysters when I was little and that got me lots of attention, but now that I'm all grown up, I think I'd rather just like chocolate like everyone else. Yesterday, I realized that I really will be old one day & it bothered me a little. Youth is like a little flower & old age like a tree in the wood, both are beautiful, but I'm not sure how a flower turns into a tree. I've a feeling it gets all shriveled up somewhere in the process and I don't think I like that. I'm much too clingy to grow old gracefully like I always thought that I would. I'll probably be a very awkward grandma- listening to the Beastie Boys and drinking iced mochas in my fingerless gloves, but I have no intention of changing with the seasons, and that's all I have to say about that.

the bear swamp...

My last blog was a prelude to this one. While reading aloud from The Lay of the Land in class yesterday, a chapter titled "The Buzzard and the Bear Swamp," I was thinking about the ominous aspects of people who are not unlike forests with murky places. I was reminded of how forgiveness is the only way to preserve a lasting bond between friends, but the most intimate fellows don't even think of forgiveness because they are not offended. When you understand the natural world, the marsh is not "primeval, desolate, and forbidding." "Letting the light of day into the deepest of its recesses," you "slip to and fro as a shadow" unmuddied and unscathed because you "know it well," "its gloomy depths, its silent streams, its hollow stumps, its trails, and its haunting mysteries." There's no need for courage. If you love the forest, you'll be undaunted face to face with the "Bear Swamp."

 

pocketful of posies...

I am a thinker, a premeditator, a ponderer. That is not to say that any great and wondrous thoughts are produced in this fertile mind, but there are many things growing and thriving here. Some are beautiful, many are wild. I don't really know if this kind of prolific mind is desirable. All of this thinking can be very distracting and exhausting, especially when there are more fruitful endeavors in want of more attention. When I'm reading a book, my mind is so busy crafting analogies and reading between the lines that it's as if I'm reading two books at once; and if I'm not reading a book, it's as if I am, and it's always the same book of poetic philosophy. Anyway, there's nothing to be done about it. I've always been this way. In truth, I'm happy to be the ground where wildflowers grow. My wanderings are like dear little friends and I'd be loth to part with them. Is it safe to trust these little suckers, cute as they are? They've taken over a good portion of my brain already. Am I too much in my own head; and if this is the way that it's to be, then what good can come of it? What is my purpose as an affectionate weed farmer?