In Stories Told...

Ever since I was a little girl, my sense of self and identity has been shaped by the women in my family, living and dead, good and bad. Each on has a story of survival and overcoming the odds and the dream of making better for those that follow. Of all the women, my mother was the most influential. In a sense she was a composite of all who had preceded her. The voices of generations were vocalized through her - she was the keeper of the tales, and now that honor has been passed on to me. Momma always said as long as we tell their stories they will never die - immortality is in the remembering....

Loved ones

never gone

Forever alive

thru those

left behind...

By stories told

made immortal...

Thoughts

Thoughts
and memories
floating around
the edges of
the mind...
Unconnected
random
When collected
and pieced together
become the
mosaic
that is our
lives...

There is a
stillness
carried in the
breeze...
Joyful quietness
in watching
grass grow...
Finding tranquility
in the space
of one's own
mind....

Revolution Whispers

Where to begin
to change the world?
So much
beyond our control,
overwhelming
in size and scope
and yet...
The simplest answers
often reside
in the simplest places...
Taken for granted,
invisible in plain sight
A single step
all that is needed
to begin...

Change the self
change the world...

Winter Rains...

I so love rainy days. Maybe it's because I live in a desert and they come so few and far between, but there is something elemental about rainy days, especially in winter. Unlike summer rains, it isn't so much about being surrounded by it, as being insulated in it. It's about being cocooned in the warmth of a comforter and candle light as if snuggled in the arms of one who loves you. It's about being surrounded in gentle waves of liquid kisses and the steady rhythm of sweet release cascading nature's endorphins through the subconscious to a place where nothing else exists, a deep and peaceful slumber.

Serendipity

What's in a look
What's in a word
a random meeting
unlikely connections
of common ground
in worlds apart
coming together
Serendipity

Home...

Home is not so much about a place, but about relationships, the people around the hearth, around its heart. For me, home was a sanctuary from the outside world, a place of safety. Home was a place of warmth and nurturing smells like Italian sausage sandwiches on rainy days, radio theater and candles when the lights went out, and broiled chicken wings and Godzilla's tinny roars on a Saturday afternoon. Home was cuddled crock pot warmth emanating its richness to fill the emptiness of a wounded latch-key heart; a sincere attempt to soften a broken home's lonely reality. The comforting smell of food connected us beyond barriers of time and space. She wanted us to feel her presence, her warmth, her safety even if she wasn't there. She was sunlit beams streaming across the floor, warming us like outstretched cats, filling us with the light and goodness that was her. Home wasn't a place. Home was my mother...

When she died, the house that was once home became nothing more than a shell, an empty facsimile of the life it had once been; no more warmth, no more smells. Evidence that was her life faded away as the house was emptied and prepared for sale. It only became real when the child before me began to cry... "It doesn't smell like Grandma anymore..." He felt it too, and yet....

We shut the door one last time and went home. Even though she is gone, I still find warm comfort in the smell of a simmering crock pot, sausage sandwiches on rainy days, chicken wings and Godzilla movies on a Saturday afternoon. To this day, when sunbeams stretch across the room and warm my face, I feel my mother's touch and no matter where I am, I'm home. I sometimes wonder what my son will remember when I am gone. Whatever it is, I hope it's home....