There Once Was a Girl

There Once Was a Girl/With a Little Yellow Curl/Right in the Middle of Her Forehead. /When She Was Good, She Was Very, Very Good... But When She Was Bad, She Was HORRID! ~ Mother Goose

My grandma Gerry always used to recite this rhyme to me...when I was a little girl, a big girl, and grown woman. Sometimes I'd ask for it, literally and figuratively, other times, I didn't. She was a consummate humorist, and would speak to me in her sort-of-deep, sort-of-light, sort-of-gravely, full-of-life voice, with a twinkle in her Irish blue eyes, a half-grin on her face, a shake of her head and a wave of her finger, and a raising and lengthening of HORRID! and a shortening of forehead so it rhymed. It's suited me well all these years, this sentiment. I am thinking of her this soft October day, remembering her patience, her solidity, her big, big love. This is a picture of me in her rose garden...almost rose garden...for we were digging, digging, digging, to plant the seeds of the roses that would grow and grow and grow. She had a quarter acre of roses in her yard, right in the center of the half acre where we played badmitton and had parties and laughed, and laughed, and laughed. That half-acre is a jungle now. But the sun still shines there, and her spirit fills the place, and if you squint, or close your eyes, you can see the rows and rows and rows of roses pink and yellow and white and red, red, red. Happy October!

Thank You and Wow and Yes!

Nothing is as important as a likeable narrator.
Nothing holds a story together better. Ethan Canin

Thank you to all of you lovely and sweet and supportive new visitors and followers from Kelly's blog. And of course, Kelly, thank you for being you. Welcome! I am so happy to have you here, and I really do love you. As you may notice, I'm not always as serious as all that, and I love cats, and funny, and design, and home stuff, too. This last week has been my first experience of all that wonderful connection and support from all over the world right here on the internet! It feels good. Really good. Inspiring. Helpful. Now that the intention is on the virtual page to set those stories free, I must do it. It's follow-up time. Again, even I am without the words to articulate how thankful I am to you for taking the time to read and to bouy up my heart with your kind words and attention, and for having such amazing, inspiring worlds of creativity and love on your blogs, shops, sites, even in your faces! I look forward to delving into them and communicating with all of you. Yay! Tonight, I so look forward to seeing the Decemberists live in concert at The St. Augustine Ampitheatre. Never seen the Decemberists and haven't seen a show at the lovely, wood-surrounded ampitheater since I was in one more than 20 years ago. I'm bringing my mom and we're sort of dressing alike. It will be magical. We have center orchestra seats!!!!!!!! Love and Light, Light, Light...Ama Livia

{Image Sources: Freckled Girl with Butterfly Tattoo: We Heart It via Freckled Flickr; Smoking Girl by Lina Scheynius via We Heart It via Lina Scheynius Flickr; The Decemberists by Autumn DeWilde; Mom and Daughter Illustration by Little Brown Pen: We Heart It via Little Brown Pen}

Flesh to Fur, Feathers to Flight

For My Flesh Had Turned to Fur and My Thoughts They Surely WereTurned to Instinct and Obedience to God... --Blitzen Trapper, "Furr"
These wild swans Yeats writes about in the poem below, to me, are the family of geese...now much more than a gaggle at almost 20, who fly and float upon the man-made pond behind my workplace, in an office park of three-story corporations, near the highway, the hospital, restaurants, and newly minted roads, where we, humans that we are, try and circle in around the wilderness, in awe and envious of the wildness, the instinct, the effortless ease of nature, of creatures who answer to no one but ancient orders held in their bones--indestructible even as hunter's bullets fly, as acres of grass and trees and water turn to cement and manicured versions of forest, as their enemies turn from hungry alligators to the roar of shining cars speeding to Starbucks.

For they have never known, or maybe have always known, the tyranny of the ego, of measured days, of rakes, and iPods, and e-mails...now they know only that air suspends them, wind and water carry them, worms live in the grass, strength comes in numbers, and the pond is cool and giving as they float from one end of the man-made lake to the other--while featherless, pale creatures come and go, buzzing with a longing and fear that engenders just the slightest bit of sympathy in their tiny hearts, if sympathy they could feel, if they even had to write down and put into words that love, ah love, is more important than knowledge, and how could they forget-- how could they forget--something they never had to remember?

The Wild Swans At Coole

The trees are in their autumn beauty,
The woodlands paths are dry,
Under the October twilight the water
Mirrors a still sky;
Upon the brimming water among the stones
Are nine-and-fifty swans.

The nineteenth autumn has come upon me
Since I first made my count;
I saw, before I had well finished,
All suddenly mount
And scatter wheeling in great broken rings
Upon their clamorous wings.
I have looked upon those brilliant creatures,
And now my heart is sore.

All's changed since I, hearing at twilight,
The first time on this shore
The bell-beat of their wings above my head,
Trod with a lighter tread.
Unwearied still, lover by lover,
They paddle in the cold
Companionable streams or climb the air;
Their hearts have not grown old;

Passion or conquest, wander where they will,
Attend upon them still.
But now they drift on the still water,
Mysterious, beautiful;
Among what rushes will they build,
By what lake's edge or pool

Delight men's eyes when I awake some day

To find they have flown away? 

 

"The Wild Swans at Coole" by W.B. Yeats, from Collected Poems. Public domain.

{Image Sources-Girl with Fawns: We Heart It; Mom and Daughter Feeding Geese: We Heart It; Figure with Swans : We Heart It via Ali Scarpulla Flickr; Geese at Target: We Heart It via Swiss Miss; Cloaked Girl With Swans: We Heart It via Inspires Tumblr; Girl Holding Swans: We Heart It via Tybx Tumblr; Wild Goose Chase: We Heart It via Fiona Watson Art Flickr }