•cold breaths•

I told Penn I'd just gotten an important voice message from our landlord. Penn sat up straight in the bath. "What did he say?" He's going to sell his house in March so he has money to fix parts of our house. Like the air conditioner. Right now, if it were hot, we wouldn't have a way to blow cold air into the house, because the A/C is broken. Penn looked serious. "We'll make cold breaths. And we'll build a garage up to the side of the house, and put the car in and close the [outside] garage door... while opening the [inside] garage door, and we'll turn the car's cold air on. So it will go into the house." I didn't have the heart to tell him the car A/C is also shot... xox

What Friday Looked Like

Yesterday, the light and the cloud cover were all over the place, even during the 15 or 20 minutes over which I took these photos. But it's amazing what can happen when you adjust your shutter speed more or less correctly, eh?

(This in no way means I knew what I was doing--it only means I'm finally brave enough to adjust the dial and see what happens. Which is no small thing, really, I suppose.)

Crow (sort of the unofficial bird of Davis, CA)

Walnut trees and sky

UC Davis research fields

UC Davis research fields

Flowering quince

The town logo

•one of those days•

When the world shows up and you meet it with open arms.

I let the tub go, unscrubbed.  I let the vegetables, the mud in the crisper, the holes in our front door where the wind blows through, all go.  The sun came back today, and though it had only been gone for twenty-four hours, Davis seemed to jump for joy.  It was like we were given back our Saturday, the farmer's market, our weekend run.  Though the wind blew, and sometimes wisps of mysterious rain dusted the blue, I stayed outside with Penn and our neighbors.  A ship was built and flown, old boards became shields and swords, oranges and broccoli were shared as equals, and adults chatted and laughed.  Someone did a face-plant.  Impromptu food and drinks were made.  The stove caught on fire.  (A paper bag, too close to the pilot.)  A baby cat-napped, a friend spent the morning "sweating copper."  I learned that phrase is actual shop-talk, not just verbal swagger.

It was a perfect day.  It was a perfect illustration of how a day can be, when something opens us up and nudges us out.

I still managed to get stuff done: dinner, snacks for the looming week, nap, chicken chores.  But it was really a day about slagging off--sunglasses and kicking a ball.  When I let go, it seems, a little time wells up from the spot where I'd kept my stick in the mud.  Elastic, that time is.  And all mine.  xox

Wild Nights Are My Glory*

Close to the house, the steady, wet sound of rain on pavement, slapping in puddles. Farther off, the wind gusts and swirls; you can hear the trees bending at wild angles in the dark.

*Okay, readers, just for fun: Who can tell me where the title comes from? :-)

Winter View

The sky a wash of cold white and grey; the trees all brown, spindly branches or the most subdued shades of grey-green; and the swimming pool, an unlikely splash of the brightest color, like a giant aqua kidney bean outlined in rosy red brick.

•ghost time•

Frustration will fall away. There will only be the palm of his hand. The white of his beard. The softness of a belly that can tolerate cheese and peanut butter heaped on an English muffin and washed down the gullet with milk, aahhh. Won’t I miss him? Won’t my heart ache like a frost heave on new pavement? In my twenties, I worried about his health. I threatened that peanut butter--I would hide it! How ridiculous—and how telling of how it will be. How the moment it all snaps away, when I’ll crave only the company of that person I once knew, and in the black of winter, how it will feel I only have myself to blame.

Winter Trees

On the bike path, dried husks of seed pods cling to the tree, lit from within and hissing against each other in the breeze.

Festive

Crows and mistletoe are hanging like ornaments on the old, gnarled trees.

A Mile From Town

The cold night air smells of manure--surprisingly clean, rural; notes of sweet green grass transformed into something deeper and earthier.

Seedpod

Under a drift of long pine needles, a burst pod of sticky red seeds. They looked fake, all glittery in the sunshine, like tiny plastic jewels.

Moon, Tree

The moon is shimmering through bare, black winter branches on a dusk-blue sky; I hesitate to write it, how a cliche can so reliably swell your heart.

Small Stones Blogroll Update

Alright, Small Stones participants. As it turns out, I'll be putting together the blogroll for the whole event--not just a little blogroll here at HAMAMA (though, maybe I'll do that as well? we shall see...) The blogroll for the entire event can be found at the Writing Our Way Home blog.

If you're planning to participate by writing small stones on your blog during January (either on your regular blog or one that you create specially for this project) and you'd like to be added to the blogroll, please send me a brief email with your URL at this address: halfassedmama@gmail.com

Thanks, and happy noticing and writing!

Join Us in the Magic River?

(More from me later, with any luck, but I wanted to be sure to post this now, since the New Year and the new River of Stones are almost upon us!)

Last year, Lis and I decided (totally on the spur of the moment, as is our half-assed wont) to participate in the River of Stones project. All during the month of January, we each wrote a stone a day (more or less--we did pretty well, actually). A "stone" is nothing more than a moment you've taken the time to really notice and record, in the simplest, most straightforward way.

Technically, a stone is not meant to be long--in fact, by definition, the more carefully and specifically one's words are chosen and the more directly to the point one's stones are, the better. But honestly, Lis and I tend to bend the rules a bit, because really, for us the point is the noticing, the being present, the taking the time each day to write something. Some days I was really inspired by the challenge of whittling my stone as closely and sharply as possible. Other days, I found I had something I really needed to get out on the page just as it hit me, extra details and all.

If you want to see our stones from last year (both from January and some we wrote in July and other times through the year), you can sort on the "aros" label in our tag cloud down the left-hand side of the Half-Assed bloggle here. (Or, you know, I could do it for you.) And if you want to participate this year, consider this: You do not need to think of yourself as a writer. You do not need to have a blog. You just need a desire to spend at least one moment each day grounding yourself in the present, finding your center, and really using your whole self to notice something fully--and then to write down that moment of noticing.

I always risk sounding like an overenthusiastic loon when I describe the effect that ongoing creative commitments like this have on me, so let me just leave you with the assurance that this one tiny act each day can create all kinds of magic in your life. The more you do it, the more magical it becomes. Want to join us in the River? Get more information here or here.

And if you're a reader here (regular, new, whatever! be our friend!) and you plan to participate in this, leave us a comment here to let us know, would you? For one thing, we want to go and read your stones! For another, I may actually get my act together to create a blogroll of our own little community of small stone writers (the larger project won't have a blogroll this year, since this has gotten way bigger than makes sense for a blogroll).

One of the nicest things about last year was finding other stone writers and communicating with them. And even though life got kind of overwhelming and hard for much of this year, and I've been very bad at keeping up regular contact with the lovely people we met last January, that doesn't mean I don't still have all your blogs bookmarked for reading when I can get myself back to regular blog reading. And for sure, this project inspires me to check in with people each day to find out what their own small stone moments were all about.

Friend

My next door neighbor stopped by my back door just before dusk. I opened the door and sat down on the threshold to visit. He lay down next to me, rolling over to make it easier for me to pet him. I scratched his chest and head and held his warm paw. When I'd get lost in thought and my fingers would stop working for too long, he'd forsake his blissed out snoozing and lick my hand politely--just once; a gentle doggy reminder to focus on the important task.

We sat like that for a long time, watching the wind in the pine tree and the willows, and the stars lighting up the deepening dark, and listening to flocks of geese trumpeting their way south.

Trust Roots

Is it better for grief to be paired with hope? Or is it best to have none, to hit the bottom hard and in your pain know, at least, that there’s no further down to go? Hope can always fail us eventually: What if the thing hoped for never comes to pass? What if the universe is moving in a different direction than the one you’re longing for? And so grief paired with hope is a perfect breeding ground for fear.

And still, I think I’ll take my grief with hope and do my best to wait, as Adrienne Rich says, "...without sadness and with grave impatience." And to believe that roots lovingly tended can survive a winter under snow and send up green shoots in the spring--whenever spring arrives.

(From "This is My Third and Last Address to You," by Adrienne Rich)

The work of winter starts fermenting in my head
how with the hands of a lover or a midwife
to hold back till the time is right

force nothing, be unforced
accept no giant miracles of growth
by counterfeit light

trust roots, allow the days to shrink
give credence to these slender means
wait without sadness and with grave impatience

here in the north where winter has a meaning
where the heaped colors suddenly go ashen
where nothing is promised

learn what an underground journey
has been, might have to be; speak in a winter code
let fog, sleet, translate; wind, carry them.

•the last days of winter•

"Mom! What is that... thing?" [Fairy photos and hummingbird story after the jump!]

Read more »

Lemon

Just now I stepped outside to pick a Meyer lemon for my tea. I twisted the fruit to break its stem away from the tree, and the perfume rose up in the chilly night air. How did I get here? I'm always wondering that. It's a good way to live, that wonder.

Not a Metaphor (No, Really)

When all I can see of a day is a consistent layer of gray cloud cover, it's easy to forget that the sky itself is always blue.

Grapefruit

The first grapefruit from our tree is vivid yellow. I peel it, cut it into bite-sized pieces; the cutting board is sticky with the juice and the fruit is so sweet and bitter it makes my tongue tingle brightly.

•making do•

The dryer broke on Tuesday, during a surge of laundry activity. It was the first of two sunny days in a frosty, gray stretch. Thank you, clothesline! And universe, for the reminder that something is always gained when another is lost. xox