THROUGH THE WINDOW: Haiku

In the First Frosty Dawn I Lie

Birdsong prevails, but.....
separate (by pane and sash)
- the windows! - all shut.

FIELD NOTES: When you feel like walking away from everything...

...first, you buy good boots...

...and it doesn't hurt to buy matching shades to walk into the sunset...

FIELD NOTES: The original Sunny 'D'...

...so I'm running into Big Y for salad and some wild sockeye to grill, when I am stopped still in my tracks by a curbside rack filled with $12.99 sunflower patio pots...it's the middle of another heat wave and still only the last day of June, so crabbiness is an easy commodity to come by, but I grab one of their new mini-carts and wheel this beauty around the store in my black-white-turquoise sundress...this lovely kept getting liked for looking so happy I wish I was getting a sales commission...Moral of the Story: when you have a little paycheck, a little AC and a little poison ivy, find a great big yellow sunflower that makes strangers smile, go home, throw some fish on the grill, pour some Pinot Grigio in a Polish crystal wine glass, find Andrea Bocelli on Pandora and you'll be dancing around the kitchen in your sundress, even if nobody's home... NOTE: THIS IS A TRUE STORY

FIELD NOTES: Check out these Celebrity tomatoes!

I finally grew some big tomatoes! What a satisfying reward after blizzard, tornado, earthquake and hurricane! DELICIOUS!

FIELD NOTES: So what exactly happened under that blue moon on New Year’s Eve?

Catching up on a Sunday morning

...to answer a question with more questions…what looks like busywork, but isn’t? A spider spinning? A bee buzzing? A bird building? A woman cleaning?...I went to my studio in the basement. It had become coated with dust not from neglect but from a certain unfortunate condition of busyness. Relatives were preoccupied with other things, but apart from that, it just happened that I was feeling more reflective than social and, moreover, was willing to embrace it even though that eve is intended for partying. The word ‘evening’ may mean the closing part of the day and the early part of the night, but the word ‘eve’ is not merely its shortened form; it brings with it other connotations. A second definition - its commonly acknowledged sense - is “the period just before some important event” or “a period of decline”. Imaginings of last light, owl-light, twilight, dusk, nightfall, soiree, sunset and the poetic gloaming are conjured. Who has not experienced how differently things look when you are in the dark?...I grabbed a bottle of Bellini, piped in some dusky jazz and pulled out an onerous bin filled with fabric scraps…probably some thirty years worth because I used to sew everything: shirts, skirts, gowns, pants, jackets, purses, pajamas, curtains, cushions, even dolls. The bin turned into a magician’s hat with endless strips from the striated layers of my life that I could color-date. A heap lay before me like a new map or fitted sheet impossible to return to its container once sprung. Midnight was on the march. Should I: Discard it and not look back until I discover I have nothing to show my grandchildren and no memory of my handiwork? Give in to burden and hang onto it like someone hiding in their obesity?...Neither...Though the blue moon ended up being hidden by cloudiness, it illuminated my night. I gathered the expensive or exotic specimens into a sequestered group, then folded the useful pieces that were big enough to actually be made into something and placed them strategically back into the bin. I took a sample swatch from everything that remained, editing this economically industrious period of my life into a small box. Before the ball dropped, I turned out the light, went upstairs and opened a bottle of champagne. The box of swatches will be reincarnated into a collage…perhaps…under the next blue moon…

FIELD NOTES: A Happy Blue Pot

A Happy Blue Pot
(For Haitians & Others, January 2010)

I bought a pot;
(enameled cast iron,
cobalt blue on the outside, milk white on the in)
not because I needed it
at the time
but because it caught my eye
like love at first sight.
I first cooked in it
the bean casserole
for Wigilia*
and when I found myself smiling
unconsciously as a babe
I called it “my happy pot”.
I have since made soup
and rice,
and smile each time
for not much reason
other than delight in gathered senses
from a sometimes senseless world.
I do not wash the pot;
I bathe it
like a child of mine
when s/he was a baby
and wrap it gently in a towel.
Out from this Aladdin’s lamp
wafts wishes, memory and dreams,
and I would want it with me
if my earth should shake.
I clang my spoon,
call out,
how can I
give it
to you?

*(pronounced: /vi.ˈɡi.ʎa/ or vee-GHEE-lee-uh, the traditional Christmas Eve vigil supper in Poland)

FIELD NOTES: Her favorite color was green...

Sunday morning musing

...that’s what I remember my mother telling me when I asked her that question. Little-girl-me turned up her nose as if a piece of cabbage had just been put in her mouth. Green?...how boring. Back then I was all about purple and pink…BRIGHT purple and pink…even going so far as to paint the bathroom tile with grape juice. I still can admire violet and fuchsia in the garden, but I have recently noticed I am going ‘green’ in a different context…my appreciation moving farther down the plant…sliding down the slender slipperiness of the stem…to water sipping, life-sustaining…green. Perhaps it is me getting better with age…like fine wine and cheese…or…becoming more like my mother (a mode some swear they’ll never allow)…but as most conditions go, so goes green with both positive and negative connotations. I do find myself unconsciously attracted to green in my clothing choices, accessories and home décor…and if I gathered it together like a bushel of vegetables, it might make a serenely self-describing still-life…..…but then of course…….there’s blue!

Garden: Day 20



Garden 'camo' (NOT green)