Long Hollow

Hard Times Require Furious Dancing

(photo by Deborah Barrett)

I love dancing.

Nevermind the therapeutic benefits, both mental and physical. When I hear certain beats and rhythms, I really can't sit still. If nothing else, my toe will be dancing.

What I love almost as much as dancing is getting others out on the dance floor with me, getting them to forget about what other people think and just get lost in the music and the movement. The smiles on their faces make my heart soar.

But dancing is therapeutic, no doubt about it. Along with writing, photography, spending time with friends, and pounding on my drums, it's one of my favorites. (Sometimes I wonder why I need so much therapy...)

Alas, between working weekends and traveling to see my parents'so much, my dancing nights have dwindled over the past year. Consequently, my stress levels have risen. So this past weekend, I talked a bunch of friends into joining me on the dance floor.

It was a blast!

That was sweet!, but having a friend think of me when she saw a copy of "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing" by Alice Walker in a shop, and take the time to send me the photo of it...well, that was just as sweet! (Thank you again, Debbie!)

Here are a few other sweet! moments from the past week...

 

Monday: bird-watching and bird-listening; managing to put off a trip to the grocery store; taking care of dusty but important things on your to-do list; a day at home with your husband, even if you're busy with your own projects

Tuesday: waking early enough to write and exercise before work; another mallard sighting; redbud trees blooming longer than usual; meeting other photographers; helping a friend celebrate her birthday

Wednesday: waking early enough two days in a row to write and exercise before work; sleeping through a hailstorm when you're exhausted; finishing a book that's driving you crazy wanting to know how it ends

Thursday: time to weed through your untended, overgrown email inbox; your husband caring enough about a wounded snake to put it in a terrarium so it can die in peace; walking the streets of Venice again, at least in your memory and words and photos

Friday: traffic working with you on an early morning road trip; splashes of bluebonnets lining a highway; time to chat with your dad, even if it's in a hospital waiting room; your mom breezing through her nuclear stress test with no problems; getting together with friends and spending hours on a dance floor; good bands

Saturday: sleeping in; biscuits and bacon for breakfast, thanks to your dad; a yard decorated with pink and purple flowers; hanging out with your parents all day; a hug from, and chance to visit with, your sister; a former co-worker contacting you for a potential new job

Sunday: sleeping in, Day 2; a walk around your old neighborhood on a brisk sunshine-filled day; new houses going up in an old neighborhood; a field of tiny yellow flowers; stopping along a highway to capture bluebonnets and Indian paintbrushes with your camera; wiggly puppies welcoming you home

Monday: getting to work in a library with a view of Texas hills and blue skies

 

I hope all of you had a week filled with therapeutic, sweet! moments, too! 

“the world has changed: it did not change without your prayers without your faith without your determination to believe in liberation and kindness; without your dancing through the years that had no beat.”

~ Alice Walker, "Hard Times Require Furious Dancing: New Poems"

Sea of Grass

 

 

Surrounded by bare branches so still I could believe they are doodles on a pencil-smudged-gray sky, I stand in a sea of grass that bows down, unmoving, waiting. 

The earth holds its breath. 

 

 

 

Fence posts lean like old men, weathered gray and full of stories. 

  

 

 

 I'm still collecting small stones like the ones above, although I haven't had much time on the computer to share them.

We've had a lot of gray days, can you tell?

 

To warm you up, here's a photo of Belle. She is pure sunshine-joy!

It is impossible for gray skies to seep too deep inside with that wiggly, grinning, leaping puppy around!

 

Linking up with Lissa's...

Good China, Grown-up Kids, and other sweet!s

 

I fell in love with this china and crystal soon after I fell in love with Tom, back in the days when brides-to-be always registered for beautiful table settings that would probably spend more time in a china cabinet than gracing a table. 

Even though I can count on one hand the number of times I've actually used it, I don't regret asking for it. It makes me smile, just looking at those delicate roses.

And the crystal, with that tinge of pink...sigh. I was never a "pink" kind of girl, until I saw that crystal.

 

Yesterday, I freed the set from the china cabinet in honor of our Christmas-on-Epiphany dinner with the kids. They're grown now, after all, so there's a little less chance of breakage. But why the heck do I have that beautiful china if I'm not going to use it? Breakage be damned! (Besides, they can pay to replace it now!)

I kept the meal simple and relatively healthy, just a ham, a green salad, and a roasted asparagus dish.

I've never made roasted asparagus in my life and just kind of threw it together which is not something I usually do (with any success) but this was a total hit and I'm going to brag while I can!

Oh, so yummy.

And I say the meal was only "relatively" healthy because I spent Saturday baking cookies. Which triggered small stone #5:

 Fingers sticky from rolling dough sprinkled with sugar; the smell of peanut butter and chocolate wafting from the oven; mouth savoring yet another warm cookie. It's still Christmas time. 

 

 

It was a day full of sweet! moments, that's for sure. Here are a few more from the past week...

 

Sunday: Mass with your daughter; a successful Craig's List sale; your niece and nephew stepping up to help your parents when you can't be there; prayers, calls, and texts from your friends when your dad has another stroke 

Monday: calls from friends; catching a performance of Vanilla Ice on TV; skipping in the rain; only suffering a few bruises when your exuberant 60 pound puppy knocks you down on your rocky road; cell phones for staying in touch when your dad's in the hospital 250 miles away; dancing on New Year's Eve, even if it's in your livingroom while watching Ryan Secrest's countdown with your daughter 

Tuesday: stepping into a new year; a productive day, despite sleeping late; black-eyed peas; parents who stick together, forgive each other, and keep laughing no matter what life throws at them; sunshine breaking through gray clouds

Wednesday: playful puppies; hearing from a long-lost blogger friend with assurances that she's okay; a fire in your woodburning stove on a cold day

Thursday: another Craig's List sale; your dad making it through surgery just fine; homemade chicken noodle soup on a cold night; finishing a project you've been working on for months

Friday: husbands who keep the woodpile full and get a fire going before leaving for work; the rain stopping just in time for your walk, especially since you didn't get the snow you hoped for; potential jobs you think you'll enjoy; your dad getting released from the hospital; homemade chili on a cold, rainy night; loud rain after months of drought

 

 

Saturday: your mother-in-law's voice on the other end of the phone line; your mom's voice on the other end of the phone line; friends who share their photography lights with you; making cookies for your family; wrapping Christmas gifts; capturing the moments of a sweet 16 party for someone who you swear was just a baby yesterday; your daughter working as your photography assistant; laughing at SNL for the first time in years

Sunday: sipping coffee on the back deck on a brisk winter morning; the unity that comes from joined prayer; laughing in the church parking lot with longtime friends; celebrating Epiphany and Christmas with your kids and husband; using your good china and crystal; a culinary experiment that is a big hit; playing Santa; watching funny videos with your kids;

Monday: pink mornings; having 2/3 of your kids home together three days in a row (even though one is sick); another Craig's List sale; enough leftovers that you don't have to cook dinner; time to edit photos from your last shoot

 

I hope 2013 is off to a good start for you, full of sweet! moments every day! (And if it's not, open your eyes and your heart a teensy bit wider and I bet you'll discover some shy little sweets just lying there, waiting to be noticed.)

 

There will come a day...

 

There will come a day when I will want to dance, but my feet will stumble. 

So I will dance today.

There will come a day when I'll want to help, but my hands will fumble.

So I will help today.

There will come a day when I will want to say "I love you", but my voice will falter.

So I will say "I love you" today.

Small Stones from Methodist Hospital

Today is the first ever Mindful Writing Day, and I almost missed it.

Small Stones is a term used by Fiona Robyn, from Writing Our Way Home, to describe a moment when you stop, focus and really pay attention to one thing and write it down, using words that evoke the senses.

I began gathering my stones in Methodist Hospital last week, while waiting there with my mother during my dad's surgery. I'm not sure if I did it right, but in any case, these are a few stones I gathered to share. Others gathered today...more private...I've tucked away in my heart.

 

Low voices. Muffled laughter. Squeaks and rattles and hums of carts and curtains and beds. Seconds tick in slow motion. Nearness and life press into heart and memory.

Momma's breath, rising, falling in sleep. Curtain-filtered light softens the lines on her face so close to my own, erases the years to a time when she was the night watchman who guarded my slumber.

Hospital time, measured in tap-tap-taps of IV drips, a succession of television shows, and nurse visits. 

Purses and bags of hospital-waiting necessities dangle from above. Snacks, medicine, writing material, books. Daddy's street clothes rest in Mama's lap, wrapped in a clear bag. Excuse me, excuse me, and everyone smiles, opens doors, makes room for the pretty lady in the wheelchair and her klutzy driver.

 

Check out the other stones on Writing Our Way Home and on the Mindful Writing Day Facebook page. And join me in the Rivers of Stone Challenge this January - write one stone every day. 

 

"Pay more attention and fall in love with the world." ~ Fiona Robyn

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The Best Laid Schemes..." (What happened to Monday and Tuesday?)

According to my calendar, I'm in Galveston right now, visiting my friend Ann, finally getting to see the cute little Victorian house she's fixing up and browsing through some wonderful eclectic shops.

Things don't always go according to plan, though, do they?

Instead of strolling the tourist-free beaches and staying up late talking and laughing with my dear friend, I've spent the past two days glued to this old computer, spending hours and hours on projects that should have only taken half the time.

(I'm beginning to wonder if shoveling coal into it might make it go any faster. I don't think it could hurt!)

Ann's free days evaporated, too, anyway, complicated by family schedules. We're going to try again in the next month or two. Why are our lives still so complicated?

I'm grateful for the work that's keeping me glued to the computer, though. One is a photo shoot from a couple of weeks ago that forced me to learn Lightoom. I'm by no means an expert, but I've learned so much, thanks to tutorials and photography friends (thank you, Beth!) and learning something new is so much fun! (And frustrating. And agonizing.)

Unfortunately, one thing I've learned is that my E: drive on my computer has gone kaputz. Nothing like a few hurdles in your path to keep you on your toes, right?

The second project was a review for BlogHer with a quick turnaround, as in, I learned about it yesterday and the deadline was this morning. And I (pretty much) turned it in on time. Ahem.

It wasn't a typical product review... more of a personal essay on health and aging and menopause, so I was happy I was chosen for the project.

I can't believe it's already Wednesday, though. Here are a few highlights from the past few days...

 

My mother turned 80! Middle-son Daniel went with me for the celebration at my parents' house. I enjoy road trips with Daniel - he helps me find good radio stations and doesn't mind me singing along loudly, even when I don't really know the words. 

It was a quick visit with family, highlighted by fried Gulf shrimp, birthday cake, breakfast by Daddy, plenty of coffee, Mexican food, and my mother in a birthday sombrero... 

...which matches this one of my dad from last month...

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Oldest-son Tommy ran his first full marathon! If you knew all the nights I stayed up with him while he struggled to breathe with his asthma, you'd really understand how very proud I am! And how relieved I was that he crossed that line, safe and sound and breathing!

This photo was snapped by his sweetheart, Kirby. She completed her second half-marathon that day. 

Yay, Tommy and Kirby!

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I won a blog drawing!! This cute cup featuring a 'doodle' by Cyndee at Eloise's Collage arrived in my mailbox Friday. I love it! Thank you, Cyndee! 

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Remember the Thanksgiving Comes First campaign? Thanks to Suldog, I found out about a petition to "Tell Target to Save Thanksgiving". If you want to add your name, click HERE.

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It rained yesterday! I mean, really and truly rained!

Well, not enough to capture a photo of the actual rain, but I did get one this morning of a dew-covered wildflower...

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Last but not least, Hilary at the Smitten Image awarded me a Post of the Week for As if I were beside you... Thank you, Hilary!

(Click the icon below to go read the other POTW and see her wonderful photography.)

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I hope you're having a wonderful week, even if your plans went agley like mine!

(At least I wasn't left with "nought but grief an' pain"...)

 

...The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

~from To a Mouse by Robert Burnes

Soft Mornings

 

On soft mornings

cotton candy clouds floating in a pastel blue sky

the wind and the trees laughing and talking and singing all around me,

I open wide the windows 

feel the brisk autumn breeze whoosh into every corner

carrying away all the bits of darkness and doubt and worry

leaving only energy and excitement and eagerness.

On soft mornings 

the day before me stretches out, timeless and infinite.

On soft mornings I can do anything.

An Ode to Texas Summers

Max stood still, letting the pond water soak through his thick fur. I watched him from a patch of shade on the hill above and marveled at the miracle of this pond.

Rain is a distant memory, the lake has become a river, triple digit temperatures and blue skies seem neverending, and area wells are drying up ... yet here this small bit of water remains, nestled in the hills above the curve in our road. 

We made a beeline for it this morning. I hadn't walked with the dogs since Thursday. Daniel filled in for me these past few mornings when I just didn't have time, but the puppies seemed happy that I was joining them again.

Even in a drought, even when the flowers are fading into memory and few of the photos I take are worth sharing, my morning walks feel like an indulgence, a quick retreat from the world where I can sort through my thoughts, pray and breathe. 

I've missed them.

I've missed the quiet and the sunshine and the morning breeze and the dogs racing into the woods after imaginary prey or rough-housing on the road. I've missed stopping to snap photos of them running ahead of me or the clouds above me or sunshine splashing on everything...

..or flowers, what's left of them, like the ones below. 

The Mexican Hats have lost their hats...

Mornings are the only time to walk these days. The heat lingers well after sunset. 

Which reminds me of this little poem...

 

Ode to Texas The devil wanted a place on earth Sort of a summer home A place to spend his vacation Whenever he wanted to roam. So he picked out Texas. A place both wretched and rough Where the climate was to his liking And the cowboys hardened and tough. He dried up the streams in the canyons And ordered no rain to fall He dried up the lakes in the valleys Then baked and scorched it all. Then over his barren country He transplanted shrubs from hell. The cactus,thistle and prickly pear The climate suited them well. Now the home was much to his liking But animal life, he had none. So he created crawling creatures That all mankind would shun. First he made the rattlesnake With it's forked poisonous tongue. Taught it to strike and rattle And how to swallow it's young. Then he made scorpions and lizards And the ugly old horned toad. He placed spiders of every description Under rocks by the side of the road. Then he ordered the sun to shine hotter,  Hotter and hotter still. Until even the cactus wilted And the old horned lizard took ill. Then he gazed on his earthly kingdom As any creator would He chuckled a little up his sleeve And admitted that it was good. 'Twas summer now and Satan lay By a prickly pear to rest. The sweat rolled off his swarthy brow So he took off his coat and vest. "By Golly," he finally panted, "I did my job too well, I'm going back to where I came from, Texas is hotter than Hell."     Coy D. Martin

 

My brother-in-law sent that to me. (Thank you, Ralph!) 

As a Texan, I found it rather offensive in some parts (Texas is heaven, not hell!) but the last two paragraphs describe our summer weather so well that I found my sense of humor and felt I should post it. 

Plus, I just happened to have a recent photo of a prickly pear... 

 

 Have a great week and stay cool!

 P.S. I just had a call from my mom - Daddy has been released from the hospital! Yay! The doctors still aren't sure what was wrong, but whatever it was, it's all better now and he's been thoroughly checked out and given a stamp of approval. Thank you for all of your prayers and good thoughts!

Saying my own prayers of thanksgiving now!

Face in the Mirror

Face in the mirror

You are the face I recognize, the face I know, the face I greet each morning,

Yes, the face I love, despite the lines and scars and spots.

You and I have traveled together, collected mementoes of Life.

Your eye-crinkles and mouth-creases... reminders of laughter and reasons to smile.

Deep lines between your brows... etched during late nights worrying about the kids.

Tiny scars on your forehead... souvenirs of chicken pox at 10 and 30, and shingles at 50.

Dark spots... kisses of Galveston sunshine.

Remember?

I do.

My life. 

My face.

 

This morning, the face staring back at me in the mirror sported a few pimples amidst her wrinkles, scars and spots. That's not really fair, is it?

My grandmother swore by Oil of Olay. She had beautiful skin. I don't remember her ever having any pimples, but the one time I tried the lotion, my face broke out something awful. Now I'm afraid of anything labeled "Oil of Olay"!

My mother has beautiful skin, too. She used the Clinique ritual for awhile - I tried it, but I think it was just too much work for me. It probably broke me out, too.

I remember lots of pimples back then, when I was a teenager. I tried everything. No luck.

Until finally, I asked our family doctor what to do. "Stop putting all that crap on your face," he told me. "Just use Ivory soap and be done with it."

He was right. Ivory soap worked! Until a few years ago when I noticed my cheeks felt like sandpaper.

Dang menopause.

Obviously, I needed a moisturizer, but I was scared, remembering the Oil of Olay situation as well as one experiment with an eye cream, guaranteed to "minimize the appearance of fine lines" - it actually poofed up the skin around my eyes. I looked like I'd been stung by a bee! That's how it got rid of the lines!

I'd rather have the lines.

The key words to watch for (I realized afterwards) were  "the appearance of"... Very important! 

Even with this in mind, I eventually succumbed to advertisements for L'Oreal's Revitalift products. I'm happy to report that my face didn't break out and my eyes didn't poof up like marshmallows. In fact, nothing much happened except my cheeks no longer felt like sandpaper. 

In other words, I still have my wrinkles, but that's okay. I'll do what I can to keep from accumulating more, but I earned the ones I have. They're me. 

I don't think I'll ever be bothered enough by my wrinkles to try Botox or surgery (I don't like pain)... but I have friends who've delved into those treatments, so I'm not passing judgement. 

So imagine my surprise one day last week when I looked in the mirror and noticed the lines between my brows were missing. Where did my furrows go?

The only thing I could attribute it to was three nights in a row of solid 7+ hours of sleep. Who could have guessed? Sleep - truly the best anti-aging tool we have, and it's free! But how many of us take advantage of it? I know I don't!

For instance, here I am typing at the computer way past my bedtime.

Furrows and dark circles are guaranteed for tomorrow! (I just hope the pimples are gone.)

But what about you? If you have a face you've grown old with, do you love it? Hate it? What do you do to take care of it?