Mopping the floors is great meditation. Especially when, as I am mopping I notice the beautiful wood grain of the 97 year old fir floors underneath the mop head. And as I mop I begin to imagine how beautiful the floor will be when we finally get to refinish them. Of course we won’t be refinishing the floors until after we finish paying off those student loans. We are back on the Dave Ramsey plan. Mopping the floors shows me just one more reason why we need to be gazelles.
Writing Life
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Mopping meditations
Thursday, June 25th, 2009My writing formula
Tuesday, June 16th, 2009If I’m ever going to become a writer, I will have to accept that someone else’s formula for writing won’t work for me. I have to be myself because I am unique, and I want to write in hopes that there is someone else in the world just a little bit like me.
Someday a Lion
Friday, May 29th, 2009
Maine Coon Kittens By elda1 CC-BY-NC
Twenty-six years old and I am dead. My heart still beats. I still breathe in Oxygen and expire Carbon Dioxide. All my vital functions are strong, but I know that it is a facade.
My spirit is flat.
I approach my dreams with equal doses of conceit and self-doubt. My villans do battle on my shoulder–the screaming and shouting of battle is so loud that I can’t hear myself think.
I know that if I sat down to write, I could write the great American novel. I fear that if I sit down to write, that I would have nothing to say.
Through the battle, a scrawn golden kitten with mangy fur and big sad eyes looks up at me and meows. “Don’t give up,” she says. Those Sad eyes plead with me. I know that to give up on my dreams would mean the death of that sad-eyed kitten. To give up on my dreams would be the death of me. To fight on above the battle…perhaps that kitten could someday be a lion.
I’m dreaming of summer.
Wednesday, January 28th, 2009
The sun is shining in my dining room window. I’m watching the snow-melt drip off the roof above the window. The branches on the apple tree are also dripping as last night’s snow turns to liquid and drips down onto the snow below. The yard is blanketed in three feet of snow, and I’m sitting inside dreaming of the day (still a few months away) when I will look at my husband dreamily and say, “Honey, it’s time.”
He will shake the winter out of his bones, pull the shovel out of the back shed, and begin to dig up the soil to create a garden bed.
Together we will gather up the pile of bricks that somebody carelessly into the garden plot. We will dig out the slate rocks that got put in there too. The bricks will become the walls of a compost pile so I can create some garden gold. The slate will become rock pathways between our square foot garden blocks.
Two blocks this summer–four foot square. Two more blocks next summer. We’ll keep adding blocks, two at a time, until we have enough. As we add more blocks, hopefully we will be able to stay supplied in a variety of fresh vegetables all summer and even put a winter’s worth of homegrown produce up during canning season.
I’m dreaming of spring and our apple, pear, cherry, and plums trees being covered in blossoms, bees buzzing lazily about, the air heavy with the scent of lilacs. Summer trees heavy laden with ripe fruit. Cookouts and camping. Swimming and swinging at the park. I’m dreaming of long sunny days and stargazing at night. Firecrackers on Fourth of July.
I’m dreaming of summer, but today I’ll content myself with a warm patch of sunshine on my living room floor.
