Growing Versions

And just like that...after seeing only a curve or a line arranged in random order, the c has come into focus, along with it, the l and the p and g. That picture is a sound that I know. You can sing it or say that shape with your hands or your tongue. You can make that shape with your body or see it in a twisted branch. The c's and the b's and the t's are all around, here and there and over there. They have broken the surface that kept them just underneath. Now they are popping up all over.

“To sing you must first open your mouth. You must have a pair of lungs, and a little knowledge of music. It is not necessary to have an accordion, or a guitar. The essential thing is to want to sing. This then is a song. I am singing.”-Henry Miller Sometimes I cannot type fast enough. Sometimes I start out typing aimlessly as I stare at the photograph I know has meaning for me. I type to figure out why. Knowing how to type without looking is my instrument. I was concealed, even from myself, before I started to write. I was an admirer of others' work certainly , but my own creative ambitions were latent. One day I started writing and taking pictures. I just started. I decided to not edit myself too much, to use my own voice and to see what happened. I began to notice other people's work more. The more I write, the more I can write. The more I write the more I can tolerate ambiguity. The more I write, the more I can wait for late buses and sit through tedi...

An elderly neighbour says he is "as good as can be expected in the circumstances." That's not nothing. The sunshine is finely tuned to just the right frequency, hovering between static and song. I don't have to strip off, the breeze does an expert job filtering away excess heat and regulating the temperature without adjustment. Flowers get noticed on days like these because their fragile lives are about to get brittle. He opens buttons. He sticks a flower in the shirt and the stem rests against his hot skin.  He suggests we take the flower home and put it in water so he can wear it again tomorrow. Just like this day. I take it home and save it for later.

You know how you don't think of someone for ages and ages and then you do and they show up shortly after? Or how you don't ever hear a word before and then you hear it more than once in the space of a week? Well, that happened to me this week. The word was ossify*.  I did not know what it meant. I had never read the word or if I had, I had glossed right over it. However, the second time hearing it prompted me to look it up. It means * to harden like bone. These parenting, multitasking days keep me rubbery I tell myself.  I keep thinking this about myself until I encounter a missing shoe, or a pokey child or an unexpected road block and then I ossify like the dickens. My son pointed out the bird's nests he made on the playground. Maybe we can catch some birds and bring them home, but we'll need to put the cats in a cage or maybe the birds. We pick up a glop of grass and sqish it together so that the birds might decide to lay their eggs in one. I reckon...

At the end of the summer we made plans to go to a water park.  We (my husband, daughter and I ) excitedly talked about what we planned to do there and in what order.  My son was ambivalent. When pushed, he said he really did not care to go.  He wanted to play more mini-golf. We decided that since he didn't seem too bothered about it that I would go with my daughter and my husband would go with my son.  That way we wouldn't waste money on something he didn't even want to do. That all seemed like a fine plan until we showed up at the parking lot and he saw the sign. A tiny lightbulb flickered on. They dropped us off and went on their way. The lightbulb's glow got more intense as the day drew on. He got agitated. He told my husband that he remembered now what park we were talking about and he in fact would have loved to have gone.  "That's where we got the balloons last year," he added. He explained further.  "You guys can read and you k...

It is one of those mornings... ...when I can pile up blankets and make slides and bouncy castles, isn't it?

I gape*on a regular basis. If I am lucky, that is. It is not easy to give over to slack jawed amazement. I arm myself with a rigidly clamped jaw. My mouth is a set of muscles rigged to tell the same anecdotes over and over to police what comes in and out. It is when I gape, though, that the passage is eased. The flow of words tumble out unguarded, but more importantly, the connections, I usually do not let myself see, come flooding in. *to stare with open mouth, as in wonder