Things I've Lost

innocence
time
love
skin cells
brain cells
hair

buttons
my keys
my mind

a whole year

opportunities
bets
old habits
connection
phone numbers
my way
myself

one sock

certainty
insecurity
a safety net
ignorance
weight
friends

memories
games
my patience
peace of mind
posessions
half a life

a credit card
my deoderant
trust

Up to This

Here's a little rundown of what I've been up to on my mini retreat in the country, minus all the boring parts with me sitting at my computer working away and the dog looking very sad indeed.

Jack and I went for a hike around Goose Pond with Meg and her dog, Tobin. Jack bounded around the 2 mile loop and passed out dead on the way home.

I made some snappy thank you cards for graduation goodness. There's something about scissors and glue and blue-green schemes that make me very happy. Take a look. You just might find one of these in a mailbox near you very soon.

I took Jack to ultimate frisbee where he met Steve's dog, Jackson. Jackson was three times Jack's size but no match for Jack's relentless play-fighting spirit.

Made the best sandwich ever for lunch: browned tofu with red peppers, avocado, lettuce and Vermont cheddar on a toasted sesame bagel. Yum.

Brewed a steaming cup of chamomile and tucked the garden in for the night. Why, you ask? Oh because tonight the temp is dropping to 29 degrees. Oh New England. You kidder.

There's also been a three-mile hike/jog down dirt roads and unmarked trails, a forded stream and a forest exit exactly where I hoped it would be. There's been good, loud music and this song, whose lyrics break my messy, beating heart. There's a to-do list full of crossed-off items and a clean dog after an unwelcome bath after Jack rolled in something gross that I won't tell you about. There's been long sleep in a dark house in the quiet woods with a warm, curled up puppy snuggled into my belly. And there's been time and silence, and time, and silence, and time.

Country Time

View from the hammock

In spite of all the work I have to do, this feels an awful lot like just the vacation I needed.

Now, nose :: grindstone. Just a little though, with well-timed sunshine hammock breaks.

Fluttering

Yesterday I hiked up Drummer Hill in the morning light. Up to the power lines and out of town til the only sounds were birds and breeze. I saw scat, coyote, and I knew because it was in the middle of the trail and perched on top of things, as high as it could get. I like knowing the secrets of the forest.


I got almost lost, twisting down the hill around mountain bike trails and ended at the highway, turned back, took a cross trail and ended up the road from where I began. The compass in my head did alright til just before the very end. One moment of panic as I looked side to side and all around me, forest. But I followed the slope and the sounds and remembered that I wasn't lost in the wilderness but in a wooded reserve in the middle of town, a blessing in itself. I'd ridden my bike there from my house in 7 minutes.


I found a perfect house near the trail head, a perfect cottage house with bay windows full of plants and a vine wreath on the wooden door. I stole a picture to remind me of beautiful spaces, the kind of place I want to create and live in some day.



This week I'm dog sitting for nine month-old Jack and staying at his own bright, sunny house in the country. I'm treating it like a vacation, a retreat. I have writing and reading to do, sewing and crafting and sleeping, hiking, walking, breathing.


Last night we trolled the yard before bed and I saw a moth with bright pink legs and pink spotted wings clinging to the screen door. The wind was blowing and its wings were fluttering but its tiny feet held tight. The air was cold and out here, the night is dark.


The weather is changing and I'm rearranging, regaining strength or finding what I never had. New ways of thinking on things that have gone round and round and round. New ways of forgiving, myself and everyone else, for what we are and aren't. I'm worrying less and thinking longer, letting reality catch up with my head and getting my heart in sync. It feels good to be right where I am.

PacNW Adventure: The Evidence

Me and Mike with Opie the dog

Mike and I finally, finally found time to sift through all the photos of our Spring Break trip and post the best ones online for you to see.

I don't know about you, but March feels like a million years ago now that the grass is green and the trees are blooming their fragrant flowers all over the place. God I love spring.

But I also love travel, and adventure, and exploring new places. I love airports and crossing state lines, new places, old friends. I love the PacNW and our collection of shared memories that mark our trip together. So before we hustle and bustle on with the springtime and the rest of our lives, take a second with us to remember an excellent trip.

Photos

Slideshow

Earth Day, SCA and the Obama Way

Photo courtesy SCA

I am so proud to be a part of this, even if only peripherally. Barack and Michelle Obama joined Bill Clinton and the Bidens for an SCA service project in Washington, DC yesterday. They worked alongside my colleagues and friends digging holes, planting trees and learning about watershed restoration.

If I'm going to be honest, this all makes me a little teary. To see something that I believe in so fiercely being recognized and honored by the President's presence is phenomenal. To know that there is someone in the White House leading my country and believing in things that mean so much to me is more than I can say.

The best part is that it wasn't just a photo op or a press stunt. Before planting trees with SCA, Obama got to work signing the Serve America Act into law. The Act allocates $5.7 million over eight years to make public service a more accessible option for people of all ages.

In his address, the President said:

We need your service, right now, at this moment in history. I’m not going to tell you what your role should be; that’s for you to discover. But I’m asking you to stand up and play your part. I’m asking you to help change history’s course. Put your shoulder up against the wheel. And if you do, I promise you – your life will be richer, our country will be stronger, and someday, years from now, you may remember it as the moment when your own story and the American story converged, when they came together, and we met the challenges of our new century.

This is a draft I can get behind. Happy Earth Day, everyone.

On Turning Ten

Someone read this poem aloud at a talk I attended earlier today. I love Billy Collins, and I loved hearing something from him read aloud. The last stanza stops me dead in my tracks. I love it, love it, love it.


On Turning Ten

The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I'm coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light--
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chicken pox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I could shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.

-Billy Collins