I’ve ignored you royally

My only excuse is

Friday and pleasurable

Things  lured me away

It all started Thursday night with open house at PepperPlace.  Bought a great magnet for the fridge which at $6 dollars was a bargain as the much larger painting was $325.  Then off to Frontera’s open house for great Mexican appetizers, more to drink and I found these wonderful metal crafted roses.

This morning after a leisurely breakfast and reading on the balcony, I attended a free seminar at Hoover Library on making your dreams reality, pizza was served. Later off to Forest Park for shopping at Zoe’s – got a sparkly hot pink beret.   Then to Naked Art to check out the unique Christmas ornaments. and then the best, we were off to Daniel Day Gallery for their Christmas Art show and terrific food, good conversations with friends and Sally Belle crooning on stage.

I’m with Scarlet on that to do list  ‘I’ll think about it tomorrow. tomorrow is another day.’  Night y’all.

TGIF.

life should be balanced
work given its due all week
this eve set aside
now it’s time to play
dance like no one is watching
greet the new season

me the harlequin
seen dancing through beveled glass
she the sent mime

Night came early with the fall back to central standard time, so when the rain came I could hear it but not see it just beyond my window.

Night’s Tears

it’s raining beyond 
my darkened window soothing
yet perhaps bad news
makes melancholy 
what I feel most at the sound
of night’s unseen tears

I read The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and loved it’s message.  Recently bought her book The Magic and am embarking on her 28 day magical gratitude journey.

I read it straight through and it seems like a practice that would do me good at this point in my life.  I’ve set new goals for the new year and 2013 is a stone’s throw from this moment.  I remembered that I kept a ‘gratitude journal’ (read Simple Abundance by  Sarah Breathnach), but lost it to the fire that destroyed my home on 2/12/11, and I never replaced it or the practice.

So from The Magic – Today is

Day 1 – Count Your Blessings – Do every day for 28 days & beyond.

1. I am truly happy and grateful to have a good paying job working with good people because the income pays for the necessities and more in my life.
   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
2. I am truly grateful for my family because they are loving and supportive of me and my life.   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
3. I am truly grateful for my good health because it allows me to be active in the world and not dependent on others.
   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
4. I am truly grateful that I can read because I can be an armchair traveler and voyeur of lives I’d otherwise never know.
   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
5. I am very grateful that I can write because I can share ideas and earn income by selling stories, poems and books.
   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
6. I am so very grateful for eyes that see because my brief bout with double vision was one of the most scary things I’ve encountered and there is so much beauty I would miss had I not recovered full use of my eyes.  (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
7. .I am grateful for ears that hear because I love music, and conversations with friends, bird’s songs and the wind in trees.
   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
8. I am grateful for sturdy legs that can carry me for miles because I love to walk and watch the day wake.  (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
9. I am grateful for my modest apartment because it is spacious, airy and on the second floor and provides me a private aerie with a view of trees and street below.   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)
10. I am grateful for the money I earn because it allows me to pay my way in the world.   (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)

Tomorrow is Day 2 – Gratitude Rock – already have one.

lives each day that is given

past has no import

to a young farm girl

nor the woman she became

husband, ten children

it would change nothing

the moment is what matters

today’s crop is all

the long train ride west

just words from a past long gone

that child’s tears long dried

lineage of blood

incarnations of the soul

paint her here and now

did you ever feel
that he’s the best just to find
that he never was

smell earth newly damp
by rain fall on parched brown ground
grass and flowers sleep

sand between my toes
cabo sun and moonlit nights
perfect summer love

soliloquy on the page

journal diary

a day once removed

to march cadence on blue lines

fill each empty page

siphoning angst hurt

experience clears the mind

for new adventure

summer’s page turned

winter now takes center stage

spring waits in the wings

leaves float on unseen breezes

I sit pen in hand

wanting to capture

it all on the page but words

cannot hold the wind

My aerie is my place on the second floor of a 4-plex located in a colorful Southside neighborhood.  It is a small town within the larger town that is Birmingham.  My balcony as well as my studio/office have a view of the street below.

I write here, paint here and yes sometimes I just watch the parade of life below.  My desk sits in front of a window, so I can ignore the mess as I work and look out at the view.  My view is a large tree whose branches are a stone’s throw away where birds come and stare at me as much as I stare at them.  The street below is quiet with the occasional.  Squirrels run from neighborhood cats; occasional joggers run by morning and evening, young children and university students come and go from school, cars leave for work in the morning and come home in the evening

From my aerie, I watched the leaves, a golden yellow rain fall in flurries from the tree out front.  Nature parades past my window, seasons come and go, rain, snow,  trees go from barren to green to a rain shimmering autumn leaves carried on the wind leaving them bare once again.

No words of mine can do them justice.  Catch the rain and the wind, try without end.

“Why are there trees I never walk under, but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
-Walt Whitman – Song of the Open Road

Today is Monday and I’m grateful to be off on Mondays.  I’ll have four 3-day weekends in November to write fast and furious to make up for the days I know I might fall short.  I’ve no doubt I can make it to 50,00 words, but it’s hard to keep up momentum after a draining day at work.

That’s why I mostly write in the morning after my walk.  Walk – Yes I’m finally back to walking in the mornings.  Not the 5 miles that was my habit, but first 1 then 2 now 3.  I didn’t think my knee would ever recover it’s previous strength after the meniscus surgery, but I’m back.

That fresh air fix on these newly brisk mornings of early Fall do amazing things for me and my writing.  I carry a small pad and pen in my pocket, because Walt was right – ideas seem to fall from the trees.