Trumpeter Swans

Just now, I heard the familiar sound of Trumpeter swans and looked to the window to see them through the skeleton arms of neighboring trees. l could see the black lines of their feet, and the scalloped outline of their flight feathers. The expanse of their wings.

I looked in earnest for more. There were only two. Their streamlined bodies stretching against the frosty morning.

They are a sure sign of spring.

I noticed how dirty my windows were, after months and months of neglect. And immediate thought was, I should never have windows this dirty. 

The voice that lives inside my head is not my own. It was put there by generations who believed that clean windows were more important than swans. More important than the affection for them. More important than living.

I said back to the voice:

It’s not the dirty windows, it’s actually having them.

It’s not the dirty windows, it’s the eyes to see.

It’s not the dirty windows, it’s the sound of Trumpeters.

It’s not the dirty windows, it’s the swelling of my heart.

It’s not the dirty windows. I’m free.

Loving the CHIN I'm In

I'll be 45 soon...and it shows.
My hair is noticeably thinner and I've just let it grow like long rye grass on top of my head. Sparse and whispy like cotton candy...and it's ok. They say your hair falls out two months after a stressful event...but I can't think of one that would be any more major than others...I think it is just age and genetics. I'm ok with that. I'll either cut it impossibly short and dye it blonde, or just wear a hat. I'm still thinking about my options.
I have "crows feet" around my eyes, wrinkles and lines that get longer by the year...but I celebrate it. I earned my stripes fair and square...from lots of laughter. If laughing so much in my life means I get wrinkles to prove it, then bring 'em on! Laugh lines! The best kind of line in my opinion.
But can we talk for a minute about my chin? My chin has always been an issue with me. I've been painfully aware of it, and have been since high school, though no one ever made mention of it...they only teased me relentlessly about my unusually long legs. Bet those women wish they had my legs NOW. (smiling to myself) Though I'm sure no one else goes home at night and says to their friend or spouse, "Did you SEE the CHIN on her?!" It isn't really that bad, but we know how we magnify, in our own self defeating way, our flaws both real and imagined. You do it too. I know you do. It's part of being human.
I had a dream the other night that my birth father came to see me and we just held each other for the longest time. He asked me what happened and I said to him that I was getting old, and that was the reason I didn't look the same as the last time he saw me. I told him I'd be 45 soon and that years have a way of sneaking up on us.
They have! Suddenly I need glasses! I carry "readers" in my purse for the times when my regular glasses won't do.
But I am embracing the changes. Almost in a curious, science experiment kind of way.
I go most days without any makeup, and once and awhile, I catch a glimpse of myself in the post office window while waiting in line and I think, damn, I look awful! These people probably think I'm really really sick!
I am, and always have been prone to dark circles under my eyes and now with  the extreme hair loss and pale crepe-y skin, people must wonder! (and that is ok too)
Though they might wonder, I see wonder. Instead of going into aging kicking and screaming and smearing creams and potions onto my face and neck and fretting about looking older, I marvel at the aging process. I almost laugh at it. What I love most is, the learning process that comes with it, and being o.k. with who I have become.
I would imagine for years how I would look with a suction/lift "chin job"...looking in the mirror with my hands holding my little second chin up to see how I'd look with no "pouch" there...
BUT Today I had a revelation.
My youngest son and I were up here in my little studio and I had on the most amazing, colorful,vintage rhinestone necklace that I just repaired. He noticed that the rhinestones were catching the sun and making rainbows. All around us were colored orbs on the walls and ceiling...moving as I moved, and reflecting upward on my chin.
I asked him to capture a photo of it.
He took this one, and this one~

This is me. Unfiltered. Unsoftened. Unmade-up. But NOT Unhappy. This is the real me and the chin that I have, until today, had such disdain for and have been self conscious of my whole life. Even at my thinnest(in high school), I still had this wierd little second chin!

My chin has seen so many good things...beautiful necklaces that I, and other amazing artists have created. Sunlight reflecting from the waters of Lake Santa Fe. It has been caressed by cool mountain air and wind from southern beaches. It has been touched by tiny baby hands. It has traveled with me through life and stretched out with yawns made from remnants of the most amazing, most awe-inspired days. And it has stretched with the weight of my body, pregnant with life. 

My chin has never been happier.

Do you have a particular part(s) that you can make peace with today? I'd love to hear about it! Please leave a comment.

First State of Mind

 

     To whomever vandalized the street downtown, I thank you from the depths of my heart. I needed this sign that day...a reminder that love will always prevail, and that ugliness and animosity never does in the end. Love is the only thing that is real.
     Small town life has its many charms. I've embraced my life here and the lovely people I see every day with smiling, welcoming faces...I find comfort in the familiarity. But there are times, when this small town existence feels very very small. Rumors spread. People talk about each other and believe the hearsay. I'm not one to believe a rumor, or perpetuate one. I like most everyone regardless of their faults, because I have insight and self awareness.
I am as flawed as the next person.
     I've been bothered by something that I experienced here recently... The last time I experienced this type of treatment, I was married to an abusive man and I have done my best to forget the way I felt all of those years ago.
     The encounter still brings some sadness to me as I write. My faith in humanity was truly tested. I was made aware that there are still those people in life that will not be satisfied until they see you fall. I was looked down upon like I was a piece of garbage. I was told with a sneer to "just sit down", as I tried to explain my feelings. And as the tears came, and as I sat, the person who resurrected those old, buried feelings of no self worth actually smiled with satisfaction, seeing the pain I was in. I could not believe what I was seeing.
     I was once again, in that place of abuse. The feelings of helplessness and anger and sadness rolled over me like waves, that I had forgotten ever existed, for over 20 years.
I became allowed myself to become, a victim....a cowering shell of the woman that I have spent the last 20 years "working on" to become whole and ok with my past and with my life here in small town, USA.
     My experience that day had me wondering if all the work I have done means nothing...if one person could tear me down so easily. If one person could determine my self worth in just a few minutes of time.
I allowed myself to become a victim again instead of staying strong in my faith that God is always with me and that I am worthy of love and acceptance. Worthy of being heard and seen. Supported by his hands, always.
     All of this from a conversation that was less than a few moments. It stemmed from a misunderstanding that I had already long ago forgotten, but one that had obviously been seething and bubbling in the mind of another who could not wait to get justification and revenge.
     Call me a fool, but I am one of those who believe that even the worst, hardened criminal still has that tiny flame of goodness inside of them. I am one of those who believe that God is present even in the "worst of the worst" because we are all of our creator...I am one of those people who believe that everything that happens, happens for a reason...and that all will be understood in God's time.
     I am not angry with myself anymore for breaking down. For crying as I sat there in public humiliation. Especially laying my vulnerability out only to be laughed at with such smugness and the kind of mean that existed in my life so long ago that I had forgotten how it felt.
     I guess what I am trying to convey is that I can only get up, dust myself off and get back on the horse. Just when we think we have overcome so much, done all the work and covered all of the "stuff", there is always more learning and more growing to do.
And so I am reminded to be gentle with myself, and be continue to be more forgiving because the others that I encounter in this life don't have it all together either. We are all only human. We are humanity. We are all works in progress.

 

Pennies from Heaven (because I forgot the really good title)

            I found the perfect one word title for this post, and then as quickly as it came, I lost it. Which is very much like me I imagine. Forgetting things, names, words and appointments. Forgetting why I came into another room with the purpose lost by the time I entered into the middle of it. And then leaving said room frustrated with myself. I read that it has much to do with the neurological issues I have. I have so many labels...fibromyalgia, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, peripheral neuropathy, depression, bulging disks and torn stuff in my spine, arthritis, Fabry's disease...

            Truth is, no one really knows why I am loosing myself to whatever this body of mine decides to do. Could be hereditary, but I know very little about my natural fathers health before he died. I only know that sometimes I am scared. I am scared of becoming encased in skin that cannot feel.

            I've lost my feet to numbness and  I experience excruciating neuropathic pain that saps my energy. I've lost my shins to partial numbness and parts of my thighs. Parts I didn't even realize were gone until the neurologist started poking me with a pin and caressing parts of me with a piece of tissue paper as my eyes were closed...

"Can you feel this?"

"This?"

"How about this?"

           Mostly, I miss the feel of the grass beneath my feet. Oh, and sand too. Now I have to wear "special" shoes. I smile to myself as I write this because I think immediately of Forrest Gump when I put them on each day....these expensive pseudo-hip mary janes with fat heels and velcro straps to keep me steady.

I miss my feet.

         But none of this can stop me from my belief that it all has a purpose beyond what I can see. Because I've seen it in action, this truly amazing Grace that God gives to us each and every day.

I look for it. And it is there.

In the smallest of things.

            Last Sunday before church we were running late. The last spots were by the big mud puddles outside of the parking lot fence. I decided to walk along the fence so I could touch it as I skirted past front bumpers, secretly savoring the cool metal beneath my fading fingertips. It reminded me of my childhood, walking by fences and running my fingertips along to cool metal as I walked. I held on to the fence to steady myself before entering the parking lot of our church. When I reached the entrance, I happened to look down. At the entrance, right by the big metal post, embedded in grass and mud and leaves, was a penny.

I was not looking for pennies. It found me. I picked it up and looked closely at the date.

1969.

The year I was born.                                                                                                                                                                                                           God knows my thoughts. He knows my pain. To me, it was a sign  that I was born for a reason. That my life has a divine plan.  Not to give up.

I'm not saying that God throws pennies down just for me to find.

What I am trying to say is that if your heart is open to receive signs...you will find them.

There are little miracles everywhere. I truly believe this. Signs of God's love exist all around us.

        I could not stop the tears coming from my eyes during the whole service that day. My youngest son, looking over at me from his seat with questioning eyes and I couldn't explain why the tears would not stop.

How can one really explain to anyone how finding a penny with 1969 on it was such a touching thing...

I guess that is what I'm trying to do here.

Through an old penny, God said to me that I was born to do this.

That my life is purposeful and that I was on the right path...just watch for big muddy puddles, touch everything and everyone you possibly can. Hold on. This numbness in your body is a gift. Use it. Use your life.

You were born to do this.

Morning

I am here, in our little room upstairs which we refer to as "Paris" though I've never been. It is a vacation spot for me; our bedroom, where the boughs of the trees reach inward toward the windows, birds flit about at the feeder hung on the oustide sash and a cat or two lounging on our bed with fresh vintage sheets. They watching intently with drowsy eyes...oh and old feather pillows that smell of grandmothers house. Bolstering my back against the old white metal bed whose life itself has seen so much of children bouncing, love making, sickness and tears and thousands  upon thousands of sleeps.
It is quiet up here. I can escape the busy busy busy of my grandchild and my youngest daughter fumbling around in her motherhood as all mothers have done. There are dishes not clean, piled in the sink, clothes in heaps on the floor in the landry room and work that beckons me each time I pass by my making desk downstairs, heaped with potential and discarded rhinestones.
This is not my whole life. It's just a moment that I have taken to reconnect. For me, reconnecting means reading a little favorite poetry, or writing a bit with a cup of Chai tea in hand. Setting aside the remains of the day until I can take a deep breath, and exhale; get dressed, put on a pair of favorite earrings or a sparkly necklace, and face the day ahead with a grateful heart.
Here is a poem I read this morning by my most beloved poet, Billy Collins~

Why do we bother with the rest of the day,

the swale of the afternoon,

the sudden dip into evening,

then night with his notorious perfumes,

his many-pointed stars?

This is the best—

throwing off the light covers,

feet on the cold floor,

and buzzing around the house on espresso—

maybe a splash of water on the face,

a palmful of vitamins—

but mostly buzzing around the house on espresso,

dictionary and atlas open on the rug,

the typewriter waiting for the key of the head,

a cello on the radio,

and, if necessary, the windows—

trees fifty, a hundred years old

out there,

heavy clouds on the way

and the lawn steaming like a horse

in the early morning. 

A Saturday Morning "Hope Note"

     I guess I feel like I have to have something monumental and incredibly spiritual to say in order to come here to write. I was inspired by this post from my dear friend from afar, Sherry, who has the ability to convey the most soothing message in a paragraph or two.
     This Saturday morning, as she prepares for Thanksgiving in Canada, I am here, blogging from bed, noticing the tinge of color on the leaves of a neighboring tree...lucky enough to have a room witha view from this old iron bed.
     The sounds of Saturday morning fill the air...cartoons mixed with something frying in the kitchen...oh and then something glass falling heavily to the floor in the living room...I'm afraid to look....
I'm thinking about the orders to finish, which bills to pay and how I will loose this extra weight...
the cat wants to get in, mewing at the window and my mind fills up like a stopped up sink with the faucet running full on. I am sliding into overwhelm.
     I guess my morning is not as peaceful as Sherry's, but it is mine nonetheless to do with what I choose. Therein lies the beauty of it. This morning is mine...I am free to choose what to focus on. Lack or abundance. Forgiveness or regret. Worry or peace of mind. My weight or the fact that I am still on this earth, alive and reasonably healthy.
Today, I invite you to focus with me, on the abundances. Let the struggles of life and living slip away for a bit. Take a deep breath with me and focus on your breath. As long as you can hear it, there is hope. Some of you this moment are experiencing loss and sadness, despair and regrets; to-do lists without end. This makes it harder, I know.
But there is light somewhere in the darkness, always.
Though it may not be apparent this moment. Know that there is goodness at work in the world and there is light inside of you...inside of others that seem so lost and so dark.
This is my raw, unedited message today.
As I hear the leaves rustle in the Autumn breeze, I know that there is always change coming. Always hope. Always death and then renewal.
     Today my to do list includes posting these lovely earrings in the shop designed in collaboration with my youngest daughter, which in itself is the embodiment of hope; for private reasons I cannot express here. Just know that I never thought I'd see it.

vintage assemblage earrings, ruby red

White Picket Fences

There is no cure for Fabry's disease or the issues I have with the resulting nerve damage. There is only wishing it didn't exist, and dealing with all the "stuff" that comes along with it. But then there is this~

queen anne's lace growing wildly right by the front step

That is when I do my "noticing" photographing exercise, that I have spoken of here before.

A lot of it centers around our home. I think because home is so important to me. It is a safe place. A constant that I can count on. A cocoon of comfort. I spend most of my time here, since I work at home, trying to make a living by doing what I love...making new things out of old things.

authentic art nouveau findings and french rhinestones

the lovely texture of milk glass creamer and sugar with embossed leaves

 I've opened a new little shop recently called "White Picket Fences", just for earrings like the handmade assemblage art nouveau earrings above...it's for all the things I adore and love to be surrounded with. Like shades of white, pale pale pinks, all things shabby chic, old and sparkly~

vintage chandelier sparkles and shabby tin tiles (even during renovation!)(and complimentary spiderwebs too

The new shop has vintage jewelry, antique linens and the recent addition of lovely handmade shabby chic lavender sachets that I have made from linens and vintage millinery flowers I loved creating them...thought they would make nice gifts.

french lavender sachets decorated with vintage millinery

I've always wanted to run a little "real" shop, but this online one will have to serve that purpose...

...you know, I still believe in happily ever after. I still believe in the sacredness of marriage and the promise of growing old with the one you love. I want my home and your home to be a sacred sanctuary, filled with the things and the people you most love.
I want to believe that when I'm gone, I've made a difference in this world.
I want my breaths to have mattered. Even after all this time, I still want the white picket fences.

There are good days when I feel strong and energetic and invincible...but I know that my "quality of life" is not going to get better. I am not the type to feel sorry for myself, but I do now and then because I'm not superwoman. I try to use my sense of humor on the really hard days and ask myself, "Are you above ground?" "Yes,?" "Then it's a good day." And then I chuckle to myself because I know it is true.
Truly, I only have today.  This day. This moment.
If you are anything at all like me, you forget on a daily basis that this could be your very. last. day.
So, I find my joy, wherever it is that day. In a dancing shadow on the wall...or a favorite song...spending time with the ones I love, or even ironing vintage linens...or in the joy of creating just a little something every day.
This poem by Mary Oliver deeply resonates with me. Especially the very last line. forgive the morbid title, but if you haven't read it, I wanted to share it with you today~
 

When Death Comes

When death comes
like the hungry bear in autumn
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps his purse shut;
when death comes
like the measle-pox;

when death comes
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering;
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,
and I look upon time as no more than an idea,
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth
tending as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something
precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life
I was a bride married to amazement.
I was a 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.

me and "Birdie" June 2012

Really Noticing, and Thoughts on Simplicity and Enough-ness

antique books from my mother, antique creamer, hydrangeas

Today I took just a few minutes in an exercise I call "purposeful noticing". I do this when I find myself sinking into the cavern that sometimes opens beneath my feet if I let it. It begins with pangs of self doubt, a bit of worry, thoughts focused more on the lack than on the abundance...and before the pit opens and I fall in, this is what I do. (all of the photos you see here, came from the same ten or so minute exercise this morning).

vintage linens in the bedroom window

I find it is always the simple things during this awareness exercise that catch my eye. The shadows of the old linens in the windows, the one favorite sugar bowl filled with dried hydrangeas; that I've taken from one end of this country to the next and back again; intact, I might add...and I remember when there was a simpler time, when that one sugar bowl along with one favorite plate was all I really had, on a shabby little white mantle in the country in the deep south. It was all I needed. It was all I could afford. And I was still a happy person.
There has been a noticeable little undercurrent throughout my life since the days of my walks in the woods as a young girl of 9...and the undercurrent consists of the love for the simplest things. Poetry stuffed into an old suitcase. One extraordinary wildflower. A shabby old book. Vintage linens. Pressed leaves...the shape and look of hydrangeas...painted white walls and salvaged furniture....a favorite old brooch...walks in the woods...laying beneath trees...

When did my life become so complicated? The sugar bowl has now become a vast collection of antique ironstone platters, plates, pitchers and vases and a big 'ol cabinet to house them all. The brooch has turned into vast amounts in stacked boxes and containers of vintage jewelry pieces and parts that I can never in a lifetime use up, because I keep buying more before I use what I have. The old suitcase has turned into at least twenty two vintage suitcases, along with countless little boxes, antique trunks and containers.

bridal earrings I made, atop little antique paper boxes from my (shrinking) collection

I feel like my life has lost its simplicity somewhere and there has, along with that thought, come the revelation that I am not being true to myself in so many ways. I'm not honoring my true spirit.
Fear is what is keeping me from myself... it took writing that word, "fear" just now, for me to realize exactly that.
What if I do simplify back to the days of that one suitcase? Back to the days when I made jewelry to please myself...before it became all about selling jewelry that I cannot even afford to buy for myself...while my first love, vintage assemblages, gathers dust on my desk? I fear what will happen financially if I stop creating the jewelry that has now become what I sell most of and most often. The jewelry that is of my alter high society event ego?
Maybe I fear how empty this big house would look without the stuff that it is stuffed with and then maybe realize that this much space isn't really necessary. Maybe I fear my Etsy shop will just be overlooked.
And in exploring this feeling of not enough-ness, and fear, which comes right along with the cavern that I discussed in the beginning of this post, comes the camera exercise. If you try it would you share your thoughts and photographs with me?

morning feet

I am asking myself lately, what exactly can I live without? What possessions do I truly need to be happy? Are any extra possessions needed at all? And what is considered extra?
I heard of the 100 thing challenge awhile ago, but never thought I could do it. While writing this post, I realized that I already had done it by 1998. I really had. Before Dave even began talking about it I think. But then came the backslide into acquiring more and more.
You can read about the 100 Thing Project at www.guynameddave.com.

What is enough?
I want so much to get back to that one plate, one sugar bowl, one suitcase mindset...to let go of the material things that need dusting and shuffling around and finding a place for.
Even if they are just cheap old things that only cost two dollars and it was such a great old pitcher how could i go home without ONE more old pitcher for two dollars?
                                                           sigh.

This word was brought to me yesterday, with a visit from a dear friend, Michelle Stambaugh, an amazing potter whom I adore. And my word mantra has become this~

A One Word "simple" Bowl by Michelle Stambaugh on Etsy

Simple.
A glorious soothing pool blue swirl of simple. (that is far from simple!)(her work is extraordinary, highly detailed and vibrant)

I think I'm going to call this "The Simplicity Project". I don't think I can narrow it down to just 100 things like Dave. At least not just yet.


**More of Michelle's Work Can be found right here:
www.mudluscious01.etsy.com