if you pick a peonie when it's closed...

just when i was as low as i could go today, peter called to ask if he picked a peonie and it was closed, would it bloom. ...and if he picked one partially opened would it open in water or not.

what a dear, dear, request of the mama.

it's 3 in the afternoon on a 95degree day in MN.

i needed someone to need their mother today.
........

and now she's tucked in upstairs. spring is to bring new life again. 'i don't think about it much', she says. "let's not talk about it" is what i know to hear now.

but there is no stopping the thinking. i already feel eased on one hand that we will come to know a sibling of addie's. i remember reading that siblings share 50% of their dna. we will hold a tiny baby again who will be *that* much like adelaide. it does feel like an embodiment of addie. how can it not? at least until this other childe becomes his or her own person and even then for me there will always be a shading, a color worn that is another.

as elizabeth mccracken wrote though, now we all know only that there will be another pregancy.

in all spheres, without a second thought, we take so much for granted.

perhaps without enough gratitude.

by grace?
by grace. near grace. within grace. of grace. beyond grace. aaaah, herbert, thank you.

i'm following my feet today to see who i am.

terracotta warriors

again not the right picture, but i only like to add an entry if there *is* a picture. the feel is right.

just off neal. steve made me do it. it's a habit that i've fallen away from and dodger, tove and i all are the worse for it.

i discovered the corn people this morning. the airport field still has them in lines. i'd forgotten about the company. they count so easily in summer. i need to remember their numbers and their sturdy stalkiness. they are small now, rugged and very rooted. they number in the thousands in tight neat rows. the beauty of mass and repeat and symmetry and then the singular beauty. tough and wild and pokey. of course i'm thinking of pam and her corn stalk books and art. and of course pam is some of my best company whenever she comes to mind. now i will think of steve also walking his NH woods and noticing and listening. if there are three of us walking the woods think how many others there are....

i was going to write about the too much of hawaii when one trains oneself so carefully to be knocked over by small and discreet.

"r" rat from now on christened "Really" , as in really hang in there, "real"ly, get real.

really, this time i'm writing here.

daily actually. i have assigned myself an Interim like the college kids get. and "for" interim, i'm taking a writing class. Ken, "really? where?". Right here, really. I'm planning to write every day, like a student does even if i don't want to. The direction as the moment is shaky. Yesterday I said absolutely nothing to myself or to anyone else. All complaining on a stupid big blank white word document. ick. [now THAT was like school. ick again].

i don't think "journaling" is what i want. journaling just may = complaining

i feel like conversation actually and find myself once again very, very lonely most days, but i don't imagine that i will have a confidant for now.

today, i'll post a Sylvia Plath poem that was a raw gift to me at lessons and carols of all things. it embodies i lesson i know but couldn't begin to express this way.

later..........

ok, ok, not *quite* this snowy this a.m., but i resorted to an old picture for the drama of it.

first, i welcome myself back~~! really, i'm happy about it. journaling, writing, thinking, letters, paper, cyberspace???????whichwhyhowtobest. mostly i love to write. additionally i visit with myself constantly. is there need to commit any of it really.....

i'm not sure but guess i'm re-appearing here. appear is such a bright good surprising feeling. even re *appear*ing feels significant.

so funny about the snow really. yesterday we also had cold and snow and about the same temps. yesterday i was resenting it and pretending it wasn't the point. kicked around with a sweater and hugged myself with a shiver at every turn outside. this morning however, dressed as i do for snow i was warmed and invigorated by both the temperature and the snow. funny about turning the page into a different beauty. me of all people who professes to dearly love our seasons; you would think that i would remember to embrace them. guess there is a small transition stage.

i pretended this morning that i was in CO. after that i pretended that i was in CA hiking as laura and martin did through the snow and without a trail. i didn't get lost though. the field road next to the field doesn't really get so very obscured you know. although........this morning as i had a cup of coffee in my bed, a train camoflauged itself. truly now, that is a bit of a trick. snowy branches in the window and white triple crown cars can do that. i even made ken laugh with the idea. we do regularly laugh at ourselves commenting in the morning that the kids would find it hard to understand that train watching in the morning rather entertains us. it is very close to having lawn chairs in an open garage and watching cars go by..... not something to pass around me thinks.

so, am a little blabby here this morn with my rearrival but i was inspired by the walk. in the beauty of the snowiness, anna sophie mutter joined me. i heard her way down in the woods past her tree and toward the airport. it's a tiny stretch in there, but a safe haven in many coats. we actually already had retreated in that direction because someone was hunting on neal ave. those voices mix uneasily for me: hawks and crows calling and gun shots. the only tracks i see ahead of me of course are deer tracks. i kept glancing about the field actually rather hoping not to see a deer fleeing but wishing that were happening. it's odd to walk as i do, pretty keyed in to all around me but to have shooting and death on the periphery. a day in life of course; almost too literal for me though.

this hunter has trespassed in several ways today of course. no one should have been on neal before me or even in addition as far as i'm concerned. his huge truck tires had already chewed up the soft snow and dug into the underlaying mud. another kind of painful analogy for me. *and* he will shoot the coyotes if he sees them and that makes me sad also. just what sort of balance to i think i'm about anyway... karen, karen, karen.

is every 5th person truly wired as ultraoverthetopgetreal sensitive? or is it just me.

i'm glad to write here again. i have more pictures to add too. and.....if i look back over my shoulder, i have much to write about it. i'm leaning toward opening this to just a few people who might wonder what's on my mind. we shall see.

rough places return

hard even for me to express today.

i'm uprooted and laying exposed on the ground. not once but twice.

the "keeper" of neal ave has indeed dealt with the downed tree. it's one way. no nuance, no intuition; brute force. some mammoth earthmover who leaves a deep and determined track, has bulldozed the felled trees. nothing tending or caring to be sure. simply in a giant stroke pushed to the side. two trees now, one fully clothed yet and one bare lay parallel to the road. they don't fit easily there; the foot and roots are exposed to all. to deal with them and force them to a new place the avenue itself is again changed. a new widened and hurt place; looks like a combat zone that has nothing to do with openings to the field, only a harsh dealing with obstacles.

my heart is so bulldozed. not only about megan and jeremy although they come today. there is such heartache in our family. fronts known and fronts unknown. young places and aged places.

depths impossible to share.

the smoothed, grassy straight path i wrote of a couple days ago? remember that one? it leads to devestation.

i'm so afraid that i can't help megan. i will see her today.
k