When it's over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

an excerpt from When Death Comes by Mary Oliver

I simply can't remember

...the last time I lay under a tree and listened to the rustling of its green green hands in the spring breeze. So today, I made a memory and I lay in the grass and I took this photo to help me to remember to connect with the earth and to connect with myself more often.

Phi Theta Kappa

I love the way the dappled sunlight falls through

the lace curtains...

I received my certificate for my membership into the International Honor Society today. Not too shabby for a highschool drop out...

Last night I lay under the stars
and in the quiet
I felt the breeze,
like the soft breath of God
wafting over my body and into my ears
assuring me
that everything unfolds
according to his plan.
I am enough.
Then he asked me,
who would you be
without the burden of your story?
and after I thought
I said,
free.
So I gave my past to God
and he cupped it in his hands
and flung it to the universe
to dissipate into
tiny
tiny
pieces
that turned into
bright burning stars.
Beautiful formations
of light
that made me who I’ve become.
And I am enough.
I am.

Ray, a collaborative work

This is "Ray", a collaborative piece between my talented husband and myself. We won Honorable Mention at the Buchanan Trash to Treasure art show last month.
This piece is a collaborative work between my husband Ken, who is a talented portrait painter, and I. The assemblage and portrait revolve around a story that we created about Ray, an African American man in Chicago who marched with Martin Luther King. He lived in an old apartment building there and his nieghbor was Miss Jones,whom he had secret affections for. Each Wednesday,he'd go over to Miss Jones' apartment to take out her garbage for her...she always invited him in for some homemade pie and lively conversation. He repaired radios and televisions on the side and prided himself in his work and civil rights activism.


You can see more of his beautiful portraits HERE.

Apple Blossoms

Today we passed an apple orchard in which the trees were being trimmed row by row by row. It was so sad to see all of the drooping branches in heaps on the ground. We filled the back of the van with the sweetly scented wilted flowers and put them in a sink of cool water when we arrived home. Fortunately the sink is a beautiful vintage deep sided sink, just perfect for such a thing as flowering branches.

As of this post, I have filled every available white pitcher and white vase and old bottle with blushing apple blossom branches and placed them in each room downstairs. When the sun comes out tomorrow, I'll take more photographs. Now, it is time to surrender to sleep and the scent of the blossoms filling the bedroom with the hope of spring.

Mother's Day

....I still wear scarves....always have, even when they are out of style, just because they remind me of you. Did you know that?

My fondest memory? Strange, I know, out of 40 years worth of remembering... my favorite is looking into the rear view mirror from the back seat of our old white car to see your forehead and the fashionable little white streak in the bangs of your perfectly curled shoulder length brown hair. How I loved the colorful scarves you wore and the way you smelled and the color of your fingernails and drinking the last bit of your tea. My God how I adore you still. How I revel in your attention and delight in your eyes... Your boisterous laughter, your sense of style, your intrinsic beauty, boundless creativity and unending generosity are only a few of the things that make me so proud to say you are my own. My mother. In loving you, I have learned to love myself...does that make sense?

What you have given me is such a gift. You gave me this life. How can I ever repay you for the countless glorious sunsets, blushing apple blossoms, the miraculous sound of my children's laughter, books of poetry, rain on my face and chocolate cake? Life has held such indescribable beauty for me and such immeasurable joy and I thank you, I thank you for bringing me here.

Happy Mother's Day Mom, you deserve every happiness and every birdsong and every spring flower and every joy.

I love you.