17 December, 2007


The past few days have been rough. December is the time for reflection of the year past. This has been one of the hardest years of my life, with so many folks passing, most significantly my step mother Rennie.

People stop living. We keep going. We look forward to love and happiness.

I spent a large portion of my youth as a gypsy, hitchhiking and riding my bike around the southwest and Montana. There were some slim times. I was reminded of this while making corn pones for our lunch today. I told Olivia how when I was a teenager, things were so tight living with my Ma that I began frying up cornmeal into little patties. That because of this, I can survive in any situation. She just looked at me and apologized for hardship, perhaps a contrast between our two upbringings, a contrast between our personalities as sisters today...
It was around that time that I started spending a lot of time in nature. Camping, and eventually living outdoors. A magpie.

Anyway, My friend Patric Bollinger sent me this photograph today. It was taken during that time.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Holy shit that's a beautyfull picture of you gypsy-magpie!

That Montana, Arizona, California slim shines in you today... like turqoise and silver...

"fried cornbread cakes" were my grandma's specialty and absolutly my favorite thing to eat right out of the frying pan. Real people food.

Magpie... Nature will always take care of you... Be like the turtle and draw yourself in for protection when you need... get close to the earth and feel safe there.

Everything stops living... life is short even when it's long. It's natural... it's nature. Keep breathing as long as you can... your red heart wants to keep beeting.

This has been a hard year, a hard month, a hard day... so many people in the world are greiving... with the war, without the war (that war) I supose it is always that way. So much of love is loss. So much love is lost. I'm lost!

I don't think it ever gets any easier. If you keep living, loving, losing...

We learn and get stronger... or we don't.

How do you make peace with anything?

How to live? How to die?

Magpie, you have almost made it through this year... for whatever that is worth. Another round of seasons. Another trip around the sun. That is quite an acomplishment... and responsibility.

In this breif life of spinning planet, dancing stars and flowing water... you have friends and you are a friend. That is important.

Take a picture of yourself today and admire the beauty of one who has loved and is loved and is alive.

Anonymous said...

How lucky I was
To have gone broke, not to have it all regurgitated
From a book, but to have lain in a field
With the tonge-tied, the murderous, the iliterate
And the alcoholic, since I've ended up like this,
The sedative raconteur, the contimplative man.

-Rodney Gones

NATASHA SHEALY-natasha@thenoise.us said...

That is a nice thing to say. it made me cry in a good way!

Anonymous said...

Photographs show the laughs
Recorded in between the bad times
Happy sailors dancing on a sinking ship
Cloudy skies and dead fruit flies
Waving goodbye with tears in my eyes
Well, sure I made it but ya know it was as hell of a trip.

Spent most of my youth
Out hobo cruising
And all I got for proof
Is rocks in my pockets and dirt in my shoes

~from John Prine, Flashback Blues...

simply enchanting is what I always thought... you in that photograph, was almost like photographing fairies. I think they call that magic.
~P.