Growing Versions

I am taking it as a good sign, not a troubling one, that I cannot seem to keep anything in my mind these days. Words escape me. My thought processes have slowed to a trickle like a drought addled brook. Things I normally am juggling or pitching about or manoeuvring are sliding right off my plate. I am denaturing. Maybe its not words and arguments and trains of thought that make me who I am. Maybe its something else. Maybe, but right now, I don't have the words for what that might be. 

On Sunday, my son rigged up a sheet as a sling between the couch and a chair.  For hours, he hung out in this suspended sheet cradle.  He was happy to be held by it and often made references to being a baby again .  At one point, he asked that we talk about babies.  I could not help thinking as I glanced over several times that day that his contraption looked like a cocoon. He regularly would emerge from the cocoon but he rarely moved from his position. The mind can weave itself warmly in the cocoon of its own thoughts, and dwell a hermit anywhere.  James Russell Lowell On a cold rainy day like today, I would like one of these cocoon (hopefully a sturdier one!) almost more than anything else. * co·coon   [ k uh - koon ] noun 1. the   silky   envelope   spun   by   the   larvae   of   many   insects,   as silkworms,   serving   as   a   covering   while   the...

I just found out about this cool project. It is called  Aday.org .  People all over the world are being encouraged to submit photos on May 15th that sum up/depict some aspect of their lives on that one day. They want photos about the home, work and technology use.  Check out the website and get ready to take some pictures.  All the photos will be gathered together and a selection of them will be published in a coffee table book by Christmas.  I love the idea of this kind of project because it reminds me of one of my favourite heroine's,  Busybody Nora , ideas about living in an apartment building. "Their home was an apartment building in New York City near Riverside Drive. The building had eight floors, and there five apartments on each floor.  Some apartment buildings are much,much larger, but this one was large enough.  Nobody had ever counted all the people, but Nora had once told her mother, "A million people live in our buildi...

Being invited to birthday parties spurs us on to seek out more and more things to wrap and decorate.  Yesterday, there was a flurry of wrapping. Tissue paper and pipe cleaners were in abundance, tape was not. I was sweeping out the living room later and I stumbled on this hidden package.  It was tucked away, and lovingly secured with a handmade pendant.  The best part about it was that some cheese burger wrapping paper got a new, redeemed identity.

Mama: "What are you writing in your notebook?" Kid: "Ideas." Mama: "Ideas about what?" Kid:  "...air planes, and movies and gumballs..." Do you have a notebook?  What are you writing in it these days? I think I need to start an idea notebook.  All I have is a lousy to do list/bills to pay notebook.