january five lines

January 2nd

the old year goes out like
the flame of the candle 
lit with discernment
the new year comes in
breaking light over warm covers

January 9th

cat dog book
christmas lights
classical music
a whispered prayer
friday night comfort

January 16th

i feel like

this winter

uncertain

and 

uncommitted.

January 23rd  

my twitter feed

is a tangle of

nuns and haiku writers

imagine for a day

they all met

January 30th

2:00 am
drive for medicine
she says i wouldn't do that
i tell her just wait
until you are a mother

About Five Lines:  I discovered five-line poems on Twitter last year. This year I am determined to post a five-line poem on my Facebook and Twitter pages each Friday so that at the end of the year I will have a nice collection.  Five Line poems are pretty quick to write, but don't think they don't go through editing.   I will often sit and change a few words or split the lines in different ways to better  set the tone or the rhythm of the poem.  Some I am sure will get further edits even after I post them.

january kindness challenge

This post is late.  It was supposed to be posted on Wednesday according to my self-directed guidelines.  Life.  I had a meeting after work last night and then we had to buy ring pops for Em's PSA announcement she is working on about same-sex marriage.    Then dinner and homework.  Tears and frustration.  Bed.  Life happens.

So I am posting today.  A day late.  And that's okay.  We have to let ourselves off the hook.  It's been hectic.  More mentally than anything else as we ponder changes, lots of mental clutter.  So this month's challenge is inspired by my morning.

Let it go.

This morning I woke and took the dog outside.  It was 6:00 am, still dark. The world was quiet, still sleeping.  No cars, no voices, no far off sounds of neighbors.  Perfect stillness.  A chill in the air, but not the biting wind of yesterday.  Just enough to feel it envelope you and make you feel like it was shaking the dust off.  Crisp through the nostrils and into the lungs.  The stars still hung above.  The far off blinking of a plane passing over.  Stillness across the field.  Perfect quiet.  The thoughts melted away into just this one moment.  Breathing.  Standing.  Being.  Five glorious minutes.

So my kindness challenge this month is to do this for yourself.

Let everything go.

Find at least that five minutes of perfect quiet and just be.

Leave everything else behind.

The dishes that aren't done.
The piles of mail stacked on the counter.
That decision you've been putting off.
The demands of your children.
The guilt you keep close.

Let it all go just for a time.

Let yourself breathe.

Give yourself that one little gift of quiet space to just be.

what is missing (and a winner)

We had no plans this weekend.  The girls spent the night Saturday with their father's family and I spent the majority of the weekend cleaning up the remnants of the clean out and redo of my youngest's room.  That is her in the photo above several years ago.

I like this pace.  I like when I have the time to clean and organize the house.  I love folding towels and baking cookies and making traditional Sunday dinners (meatloaf and scalloped potatoes tonight).

I realized this weekend that I'm missing my girls being small.  I miss playgrounds, the giant roll of paper across the floor to paint on.  Do you know what I miss most?  Reading books together.  All those preschool/elementary age books with the gorgeous illustrations.  I miss that.  I miss Woo, and Bittle and The Old Woman Who Named Things.   Goodnight Moon every night.  We went through two copies of that one.  Sometimes we read now.  We read the Wildwood series together, but somehow it's not the same.  It's not the same as going back to those favorite books, over and over and over again.

But more then anything I miss being with them.  There was a period of time when my girls were five and seven; when we moved here after their father and I separated.  I had not yet started a new job and we spent our days together. We ate lunches together outside and made homemade playdough and I taught them how to cook and bake. We took long walks and had tea parties and K read Elsa Beskow books to her dolls and stuffed animals.

I wouldn't change the wonder of who they are becoming and the independence they are finding, but I miss the time together most of all.  I am tired after work and they are frustrated after a day of school. The pace of our lives has changed and my focus and my role has changed.

And that's what it is, but oh how I miss those days.

--------------------

P.S.   January's contest winner for The Introvert's Way was Lynn!!  Lynn email your full name and address to underthebigbluesky@gmail.com and I will send it on it's way.

So many responses to how you are finding quiet this year.  Here is hers:

I'm learning to leave the noise turned off for a while when I get home in the evening. It's a small step in some ways and a very large step in others. 

Everyone had some great ideas as noted below:

Jennifer said: I've taken to leaving the radio off when I take long drives.

Rebecca said:  I'm finding quiet in my life this year by waking up a half hour early each day to take a walk.

Beth said: For the past few months I've been spending at least 30 minutes a day writing. I shut everyone else out and spend that time with my characters and the words-- nothing else.

Karen said: Each morning I sit with coffee and write in my journal, then do prayers I love that time of the day and I love how I've carved some intentions with that hour when I am all alone.

1. 
   

trust

In April of last year we found Miss Calico.  A stray living and eating in the woods next to my Grandparent's house.  My Grandfather already has four wild ones he has trapped, fixed and feeds outside. Calico came, but didn't really fit in with that crowd.  My Aunt and K were the first to notice her eye.  I'll never forget K running into the house saying, "That cat's eye is gone!"  In fact, it was melting.  A condition of melting cornea, the vet said because of a scratch and infection the eye was basically dissolving itself.  We treated her and every night and morning, I wrapped her up papoose style on my bathroom floor and with a syringe put the healing drops made from her own blood drawn into her eye.  Then some cream.  She didn't like this.  She growled and hissed and tried to bite while I held her, claws trapped in the papoose blanket.  She didn't seem to hold it against me though once she was free.

For awhile she hung out with me and slowly my hopes of finding a home for her faded.  She was older, about ten by the vet's guess.  She wasn't a lap cat, far from it.  She was likely to give you a swat if you got too close.  I had quite a few scratches on my arms from invading her space.  So in the end we kept her.  She lives in my bedroom and bathroom.  The carrier I used to bring her from outside still has a towel bed and she goes in there often to be alone.  Over these months though she has warmed up to me.  Most nights when I go to bed, she climbs up next to me while I read.  If I'm careful and don't head around her blind eye she has let me pet her.

So imagine my surprise when last night after a bath, reading on the bed, wrapped in a towel, Miss Calico jumped upon the bed, crawled onto my stomach, settled down and stayed.  I was shocked. Moving very slowly, putting my book down, I laid there and watched her.  It took her a few minutes but then she put her head down on her paws,  closed her eyes and started purring.  I didn't even try to pet her, I just stayed there and let her be.  I had things to do downstairs.  I hadn't checked in with the girls.  I let things ride.  We laid there together for about fifteen or twenty minutes.  Then she hopped up and strode back into the bathroom.

I got up and couldn't wait to go down and tell the girls.

Just a reminder with patience and time, things come around.

I love that cat.

this moment :: a January stocklist

Making : cranberry oatmeal cookies

Drinking : a last caffeine tea, going to give it up again
Cooking: a quick dinner after an evening farm visit

Reading: An Irish Country Doctor by Patrick Taylor

Wanting: more time at home

Looking: at an empty field across from me which makes me sad

Playing: with alpacas, a visit to a nearby farm at feeding time

Deciding: what to do next

Enjoying: a mild winter

Waiting: for Spring's green

Liking: myself a lot more

Loving: a three-day weekend

Pondering: faith and it's many forms

Considering: homeschool options for my youngest

Watching: Grantchester, tonight, so enjoyable

Hoping: an answer comes to me

Marvelling: at how quickly time flies and children age

Needing: more time

Smelling: the fur on the neck of my little black cat

Wearing: these shoes around the house which I love

Following: my heart

Noticing: the way the sun silhouettes the stark naked trees in the evening

Knowing: there is something better than this chaos

Thinking: about a change in lifestyle

Admiring: my grandparents and the way they cope with their late 80's

Sorting: clothes, why is there always so much laundry

Buying: a new dishwasher when the tax check comes in

Getting: tired of waiting to make decisions

Bookmarking: old blogs to visit again

Disliking: the way change tightens my chest

Opening: my heart to change

Giggling: at the silly things we do that no one else would understand

Feeling: warm and cozy after a hot shower

Snacking: on homemade chocolate chip cookies

Helping: my daughter make an important decision

Hearing: the sound of rain outside

Wishing: everyone a blessed week

P.S.  Don't forget to enter January's contest if you haven't already!

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days of joy

Some days are more joyous than others.  There seems to be no rhyme or reason why.  Some days it seems no matter what goes wrong the joy and good humor shines through.  Other days one simple hangup can seem to ruin the day.

Today was a good day.  With no reason except that I experienced pure joy.  Pure simple everyday joy.

Here is to more of those days.

cracks in the darkness

this space
silent
not even the humming
furnace
or the ticking
clock

this place
empty
dark
blank
nothing-
ness

this space
so rare
once common
this space
of not
anything

here with the
emptiness
the silence
see in the space
this moment
hold onto it

befriend
this space
it's darkness
it's silence
welcome it
tenderly

for it
never remains
the darkness
sitting here
slowly
the light comes

filters through
the cracks left
in the spaces between
what is
what was
what will be

the light comes
here in the darkness
in the silence
as you wait
though you must wait
and listen to the
silence of
this space