Inspired by Lens-Artist Challenge #53: Your Choice
Happy Anniversary to the women who host the Lens-Artist Challenge – celebrating one year by…suggesting that you respond to today’s challenge with any subject that’s near and dear to YOUR hearts, as we’ve done with our images today. If you’d prefer some guidance, choose any of the four subjects we’ve selected this week (Friendship, Imagination, Connected or A Country that’s special to you).
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What subject is near and dear to my heart?
My family…and scenes like this one from post Christmas 2017 festivities.
Enjoying a family sing-along.
Complete with my husband, son-in-law, son & daughter on guitar and my 18 month old grandson on his new kid-size djembe drum.
I am carefully balanced on a step stool trying my best to capture the moment. While singing.
This week, let’s think about language. Notice the places where words flow confidently and those where words falter.
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You did too much
My mother admonished me after I made my way down the stairs into the living room…two days before Christmas in 1986. After I discovered blood where there shouldn’t have been any. My hand smoothing my slightly rounded belly – as if that would stop what was happening.
What I feared was happening…
As I called out from the small confines of our brand new second floor bathroom. A short distance from a third bedroom…finished a few months earlier. Space for a new family member.
My voice unheard over the cranked up stereo down below…You Better Watch Out You Better Not Cry…in anticipation of the holiday to come. My 4 year old daughter over the moon excited about Santa. And her grandparents’ visit.
You Did Too Much
Four words.
Language that jumpstarted slivers of guilt. Mixed with grief and anger and fear.
Compounded by my doctor….who, hours later with eyes averted, added…
These Things Happen.
It’s Probably For The Best.
What did I do?…
The unanswered question wrapped around my heart…until the day almost a year later…when my beautiful healthy son was born. And I exhaled.
The year was 1971.
Joni Mitchell released Blue – one of my favorite albums…ever.
A few years later I was able to see her perform in concert on a cold winter night. Up in the balcony at The Music Hall in Boston. It was a magical evening spent with this amazing singer/songwriter.
Nancy Merrill is hosting a photo challenge. The prompt this week: Grandparents
IN A NEW POST CREATED FOR THIS CHALLENGE, SHARE A PHOTO OR TWO FEATURING GRANDPARENTS OF ANY KIND.
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I think of my grandparents often. I have written about them in this blog many times. I miss them still. I have included links to their birthday posts for those who would like a peek at the lives of these exceptional grandparents. Two of my favorite photographs are posted below.
My four grandparents were the definition of unconditional love.
Opa and Oma with me (age 3) and my sister
Opa – my mother’s father, wrote me countless letters (which I still have). I was his “Pen Pal.” He showered me with words of encouragement and support in all my childhood adventures. His sense of humor is family legend. He awakened my love of all things cards and games. Opa and I would sit across from each other playing Pinochle for hours on end…one of my last memories of him.
Oma – my mother’s mother, learned to drive a car so she could make the 45 minute trip from NY to visit me – her first grandchild. At the age of 47. She baked birthday cakes for her grandchildren and made a mean macaroni and cheese. She wrote to me at camp and sent postcards from her and Opa’s many trips around the USA. We became very close as she spent her last few years near my home.
Grammy & Papa and me (age 3)
Grammy – my father’s mother, lived many hours away from my family…but she wrote me countless letters – full of details of her life “down South” with her sisters. After Papa died, I got to know her better as she made extended visits to stay with us. She was a character and not afraid to speak her mind. An expert seamstress, she made dress-up outfits for my sister and me. Doll clothes too.
Papa – my father’s father, made an impression on me during the short time I knew him…as he died unexpectedly the year I turned 10. I still have a few of his letters. I remember him as a quiet, sweet and patient man who made me feel special.
[As a grandparent to a spectacular 3 year old, I now understand how much fun it is!]
Inspired by Frank at Dutch goes the Photo. The prompt: Outdoors
Tree Farm 2008
Outdoors…
Where my family of 4 played, walked, explored, planted, vacationed and amassed countless memories.
We also discovered…it was the only place where you could carefully pick out a Christmas tree.
From many tree options.
And cut it down yourself.
For 28 years we piled into the car and drove the few miles to a local Christmas tree farm. Usually in early December. In later years, when the kids were in college, we went the weekend after Thanksgiving – so they could both participate.
It began with just my husband and me. Then with our daughter. Five years later our son completed the family group. His first visit, at age 4 weeks, was in a front pack I wore close to my chest.
Up and down the paths we’d search. The kids running ahead. Often in different directions (hence no photos from those years)…Here’s one! No, here’s one! Look I found it! What about THIS one?
We hunted for just the right tree. Tall, but not too tall. Wide, but not too wide. No big gaps (or gapes as they used to giggle) between the branches. We also learned to avoid the blue spruces with their prickly needles. Sometimes it took a while for nature to cooperate with our requirements. And often there was snow to tromp through…adding to the adventure and challenge.
We’d agree – finally – on the perfect (or near perfect) choice. Cut it down. Carefully tie it to the roof of the station wagon. And bring it home.
If we weren’t buying it that day, we attached a tag with our name written on it to the top branch. Nearer to December 25th, we’d return – with our handsaw. And hopefully remember where our tagged tree was!
Once our children stopped coming home for Thanksgiving to participate in the weekend tree tagging, this tradition came to its natural end in 2009 – our last family trip to the tree farm.
When I was a young girl – a very young girl – I dreamed I could fly.
All by myself.
It was glorious while it lasted.
This photograph reminds me of that dream.
Lying in bed trying to fall asleep was not always easy when I was a child. Feelings are hard to sort out, identify and soothe when you’ve barely learned to read and write. I was also expected to solve my own problems.
Maybe it was watching the Mighty Mouse cartoons. I couldn’t take my eyes off his soaring figure and trademark cape…flying high to Save The Day. Or maybe, later, it was the view from the branches of the tree I loved to climb. Peeking out from behind the leaves.
For whatever reason, I transformed to a girl in flight during nighttime dreams. The dream began as I started running…
…running across my backyard. Faster and faster. Through the neighbor’s lawn. Until the grass was a blur. The trees were a blur. Only the sky still in focus. Always a blue sky. When my legs could run no faster, I’d jump. Without fail, Up I Went. My arms straight out to my sides, waving up and down birdlike. Flying away. Just like that…
This post inspired by V.J.’s Weekly Challenge #55: Reclaim
The things that women reclaim are often their own voice, their own values, their imagination, their clairvoyance, their stories, their ancient memories. If we go for the deeper, and the darker, and the less known we will touch the bones.
― Clarissa Pinkola Estés
What’s done is done. What’s over is over.
One by one she closed the chapters
Convincing herself
it was so.
She shelved them high…year after year
Dust settled slowly
Coating spine after spine.
But that glimmer still surfaced
Again and again
A nagging suspicion…
Is done really done?
Is over really…over?
So she emptied the shelf
And cracked open each volume
To travel chapter by chapter
From whisper to shout
Addendum in process
The jury still out.
one letter UP ~ diary 2.0 