The End of the Journal

I am almost to the end of my current journal. I started it 12/7/08. I think I have four or five pages left. I have a funny relationship with my journals. They feel like a part of me. When I start a new one I always believe that it's a start of a new season in my life. So now that I'm coming to the end of this one I wonder where life will take me and what I will write about in the next one. I have noticed much less venting going on and more creating lately. I am so grateful about that.

Life is ever changing. God is never changing but He set in motion a process of life and I want to live in it and maybe, just maybe capture or record just a part of it. Maybe.

e.e.cummings - Spring is like a perhaps hand

Selected Poems

Spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

From the Garden

from my garden

I Love Books

I just love books. I recently moved some personal items around in my house and made myself a reading corner. I collected all my books from around the house, and now sitting and looking at my book shelf, the titles and colors of the binding, I am grateful for the opportunity, ability and desire to read. John Steinbeck all grouped together, sitting by 'Off Magazine Street' by Ronald Everett Capps. Mariane Pearl's, 'A Mighty Heart' sitting with 'Night' by Elie Wiesel and Ishmael Beah's 'A Long Way Gone'. They are in the section with 'The Kite Runner' and 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'. There is one section for Haiti - Madison Smartt Bell's trilogy and four of Edwidge Danticat's books. There is also quite a few classics, many I have read, many I have tried to but all give me pleasure to just look at, much like a treasured piece of art, as they actually are. 'Les Miserables', 'The Good Earth'. I have learned so much from 'A Narrative of Sojourner Truth' and 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas'. My all time favorite, the Bible. My treasured 'E.E.Cummings Complete Poems 1904-1962'. Books, I just love books!

A Bull Charged the Fence

A bull charged the fence
were I was
yet he stopped
on the other side of me.
My heart raced
but I stood
and stared back at the snorting.
No mistake that
the power could crush me.
Saved by the fence
that never knew me.

I Hate Slugs

I was outside and loving my garden experience - until...what the heck is eating those leaves?? SLUGS!

I really hate slugs. Slugs love new growth. Slugs live away from the sunlight and come out with moisture and darkness...absence of light and newly watered plants...they attack.

Slugs. You plant your garden. You have high hopes for your garden. You care for your garden...and...you wake up to see very tender, new leaves eaten by something. That something is slugs. I really hate slugs.

Meadow Speak

The meadow spoke

again this morning when
the sun arrived to visit.
A yellow speaker popped off
while
the evergreen remained seated,
as usual.
A purple statesman stood to speak
and the air stirred
with
fresh growth.
I rested upon the carpet
and smiled
that we were so well cared for.

Bean Soup

After noticing many half used amounts of dried beans, lentils, barley - etc. in my pantry I decided to make a multiple bean soup to continue my journey to be a frugal person. :-) I took about 1 cup of red beans, 1 cup of maya coba beans, and 1/2 cup of some small white bean, probably a navy bean - I use Mason jars to store dried food items, nuts, couscous - stuff like that so sometimes I don't label it and... anyway, back to the soup. I soaked them overnight. The next morning I rinsed them and put them in a cast iron dutch oven - by the way - using cast iron to cook dried beans makes a big difference in how they turn out, for the good! Same for collards and turnips. My mother in law told me that when I was just a wisp of a woman back in the day and although I tried to not believe her in solidarity to my Northern roots, I eventually gave in and she was correct. Again, back to the soup. After rinsing the beans I put them in the pot and used two soup can size chicken broth - NO MSG - and the rest of a box of portobello mushroom soup I had in refrigerator. (I wouldn't do that again because it makes a weird foam at the top at first). I added about 1/3 cup red lentils. Red lentils cook completely apart very easily so I threw them in for taste and as a thickener. I put in, from the garden, cilantro and parsley. I put in a jalapeno pepper and one large onion diced. I added the rest of a still good to use but somewhat limp bunch of celery with leaves cut with kitchen shears in a very random fashion over the pot. Coarse ground pepper. I don't think anything else for first phase but don't hold me to it. After it came to a boil I turned it down to the lowest setting I have and let it cook all day. At about 3 PM - (great perk to have office bottom floor of home) I added skinless polish kielbasa and let it cook another hour or so. Very very good if I do say so myself. The end..

Wind Poem

Ageless whisper,
newborn shout
through the crack in the door
as
I lay listening.
A gust more violent
than prepared for
screams through
and
I stand suddenly
but
I am frozen
for a moment
until the blast
becomes a draft
and
I return to recline
and
pull the covers over my head.

Pizza from what's on hand

Made a pizza today for lunch. Made the crust, made the sauce. Put on it what I had on hand. And it was good! I have been trying to eliminate fast food from our diet, as much as possible in this hectic world. I don't think that we understand how many chemicals we put in our bodies by buying the packaged foods we do. I have made an effort to keep basic ingredients in the house all the time so that when I decide to make something I don't have to run to the store every time. Herbs - so easy to grow and keep on hand. A bottom watering window box and lots of sun and anyone can do it.

Crust: 1 package active dry yeast, 1 tsp. white sugar, 1 Cup warm water. Take these three and mix - let sit 10 minutes.
2.5 Cups bread flour, 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 teaspoon salt - add these three to the other mixture, mix until smooth, let sit 5 minutes - then roll it out. If your using a pizza stone as I do and highly recommend, sprinkle corn meal liberally on the stone before you put the dough on the stone. If using a pan, lightly grease.

Sauce: I took a 15 oz (I think - the size of a can of vegetables) can of tomato sauce - added a big handful of fresh sweet basil, chopped and a smaller handful of fresh oregano leaves chopped, three minced garlic cloves and pepper and let it simmer the whole time the dough is being prepared - or longer if you can remember to put it on ahead. - you can also season the sauce more but I like what I did - basic and clean.

I had in refrigerator feta cheese, asparagus, Mozzarella, yellow bell pepper. In freezer two Italian sausages and breakfast patty sausage. On counter sun dried tomatoes. Fried sausage, drained it. Pan seared asparagus with olive oil and garlic sea salt. Spread sauce on dough, put the feta cheese as bottom layer then added rest with Mozzarella and sun dried tomatoes on top. Bake 450 oven 20 minutes.

What I would do different next time - I would use that can of black olives I forgot I had in the pantry and I would definitely add onion but I had just used the last one I had for Jambalaya I was making for tonight - but it was still very good.

The end.

Aging

Satisfied, dissatisfied.
Knowing, wondering.
Happy, sad.

Slower, more certain.
Uncertain, concerned.

Free, and shackled.
Excited, subdued.

All around better,
but worse for the wear.

Abrupt Changes

Hurricane Ivan certainly was an abrupt change in my life. I wrote this after - obviously.

How could you have done to us what you did, salty, beautiful blue?
Why roar at your gazing lover?
Sue, who gardened by your breezes has gone.
No voices or crabbing adventures and grandchildren playing...
who knew that one day YOU would grow ENRAGED
and take it all away.
How can I love you, trust you, though you woo me daily with your calm lapping, making up to me.
Breathing your scent I can't help myself.
Lover again.

Heron Towers

Portofino, Pensacola Beach

August Storm

Portofino, Pensacola Beach

Long Time Ago

I ran across this a few months ago - shocked me! Inside I feel like that same young woman in this photo - but looking at me today...well...I just appreciate the today life!
Also - my graduate in photo - Dale Buran - good friend and confidant at that time.

The Value of More, and Less

This morning I finally came back to my room, the room where my flowered consignment arm chair is - my place to contemplate. Why have I been away so long? Just sitting down I feel the hours of prayer and searching and writing and thinking that still linger here. I think of all the other things I have been making time for in place of this and I am a bit ashamed. There is no comparison to time spent here.

This morning I am grateful for more - more people in my life than myself...all those who have recently reached out to us - our family, during a health crisis. I am so very appreciative of them all. I am grateful that God is more, so much more.

This morning I am also grateful for less - less stress, less attachment to what is of no profit to any aspect of truly living life.

And so I look forward to more, and less in my life.

Low Tide Sunrise

Gulf Breeze, Florida

New Years Eve Lights