~Upstream and Down~

I live happily in my own head, content and entertained by my own ponderings and observations. This outward look/inward analysis serves the writer in me well. I'm a bit isolated during the time it takes to transfer words from head to paper. The process requires uninterrupted time while the download takes place. Usually I listen to the words in my head and type them-- an easy flow from mind to lap top. Who needs a pen and paper these days? I ignore a multitude of distractions around me to the point that my husband will complain, "You don't remember a thing I tell you." Huh? Has he spoken? It's not that I've forgotten, exactly; it's more like I never heard him in the first place. I could well have looked him in the eye while he told me he had a meeting at six o'clock, but my look would have been the vacant stare of a sleepwalker. I may even have nodded and given an affirmative mmm, hmmm, but I didn't absorb a thing. The thread of my own thought was st...

The Tree on the Corner By Lilian Moore I've seen The tree on the corner in spring bud and summer green. Yesterday it was yellow gold. Then a cold wind began to blow. Now I know-- you really do not see a tree until you see its bones. I came across this poem years ago when I was a new teacher. It was perfect for young students with its simple words, and simple expression of the sequence of the seasons. I printed the words on chart paper, using the appropriate color for each season's verse. I drew a bare tree, branches reaching and dividing and running off the paper, and leaves on the ground around the trunk. I hung it on a bulletin board every year in November. The children loved its rhythm . . . like the rhythm of the seasons. I left this poster behind, along with many others, when I retired. But the words remained with me when I left. Today I walked into a hospital room to visit my mother. She'd broken her hip yesterday and was waiting for surgery. Pale, slack-faced in sle...

I took a picture yesterday morning of frosty leaves on a prickly vine. Not fine art, or anything, but the sun sparkling on the frost caught my eye, so I took the picture. I posted it on Flickr with the title: "When the going gets tough." The plant will succumb soon enough to the cold by dropping its leaves and hunkering down in survival mode for the winter, but in the meantime, it was hanging in . . . the tough get going. The title now seems a bit prophetic after I answered the phone this morning. An older son issue. Again. The kind that wrenches a mother's gut and calls for maternal toughness. Again. So I need to be strong when I feel anything but, act decisively when I have no clue if I'm doing the right thing. Time will tell. I can only take one step at a time. Each one takes me to a new vantage point, another decision to be made. One step at a time, day by day. This works. Somehow I've learned to stop worrying about where I'll be called to step in the futu...