Blogging

You know what? I kind of miss blogging. I'm tired of apps and phones. I miss my old camera. I still have it somewhere and I definitely still have the photo editing program on my laptop that I used with it. I wonder if I even remember how to use it? 

This was once a knitting blog. I started in, I believe, 2006. It evolved and over time and eventually contained more poetry than knitting. Now, it's 2025 and I've been writing my own poetry for several years. It's been getting published for the last two of those years. Things move on, right.

Yet, today I came across my Barbies and felt like making them new dresses. Spring is coming and I miss posing my dolls and taking pretty pictures. Setting my camera on delay on the ground and trotting around front to get a photo of my socked feet was fun. I remember fun. Surely, there's still time for that?

My feet in 2017. I look so much younger!

Creativity Exercise

Leaving this here. Happy New Year.

 

Goals for 2023

I never make resolutions at New Year. Rather, I re-visit, remind, and hone intentions. I always think it best to do this regularly but New Year's Eve is a chance to really bite it off and chew.

So. Some revisiting:

Take more pictures of my projects and of the world around me. Post them.

I remember when I was social and how I enjoyed it. Now that that is possible again, don't let chances slip by. I do know many delightful people. Make more effort to be with them.

Write and write some more.

Some reminding:

I am happier when I take care of my health. A recent dental tragedy - yes another one - has made it impossible for me to eat mindlessly for about six weeks now. I have to eat very slowly and carefully and be mindful of getting as much nutrition as possible from soft foods that don't hurt my mouth. So, while this has been a difficult time, there has been a positive side effect. My digestive system feels much better than before and I'm generally lighter and less sluggish. I remember when I felt well because I feel so again. Keep this up. Eat delicious foods that are good for me. Life is too short to eat foods I don't like or want.

Also, remember that I feel best when I write regularly.

Some honing: 

Really be protective of my time to be creative. Carve out spaces for writing and reading and putting my work together. Getting published in a journal is a major goal for 2023. Keep working at that. Knit, cook, dance. Don't waste time.

There are other things I could focus on like work, looking for new work, money, and the like. But I want to be positive. I want good energy. Fretting about practicalities is best left for another day. Happy New Year everyone.

Moma 2022

 

I turned around and almost bumped into a Louise Bourgeois. 

Upon Reading North

 

Upon Reading North*

To say it’s unmagical is not to insult it.

It’s we who qualify and crave without definition.

Only assumptions based on context. Diction.

An entire first reading can be spent looking up meanings.

Magic’s absence then, is merely a possible state.

No stone ships here, nor glinting gravel

where men fell and froze and thawed again.

Only embers and beer cans and rebar lace.

This is Lake Ontario. On a clear day, they say, 

you can see Rochester from here.

Though noisy with gulls, untidy with detritus,

this shore of sea, this coast of bay,

is rest. Under the paling stars of morning

lay your head on the sand. Point north.

The city is behind you now.

Here is Aurora. Early sun turns the inner eye red.

The cascade is waves, each following the last.

The evolution is of your education, your

experience, in which you are the expert.

Thus the world offers itself to your imagination.

Within struggle is wonder, that bulky emotion.

It leaves room for little else.

                                                                    *after Seamus Heaney

A Quote About

 "He was after a joyfulness, a belief in existence in which man's inner light is neither rare nor elite, but godly and common and acknowledged. For that it was necessary to be rooted in the world again."

                                                               Mary Oliver on Walt Whitman