Stumped

April 17, 2022. We’ve had Ramble with us a little over a year now – half her young life. She has some unexplainable behaviors! Some we have mediated via training, some (like aversion to being outdoors after dark) we are coming to accept. And some are puzzles, not so much to solve as to engage and explore. Like her morning barks: clearly a ritual for her.

The image below is pulled from a backyard snapshot – blue sky replacing a lot of additional greenery – this better represents my sense that she is gazing off into the “wild blue yonder” during her ritual.

Place Post Surgery

February 25, 2022. I’m happy to no longer be as tied to “place” as when I wrote this poem during the first week after my February 2 hip replacement surgery – I am now “me” again mentally and my eyes again focus sufficiently for digital collage. Oh, what surgical meds and pain meds do to one’s psyche and vision and energy! Good to have all that flushed away! I now walk around the block daily (with my rollator of course!) but I am still sitting in my grand dad’s rocker a good bit – often with Labrador companions – each of us “placed”.

Porch Vibrations

October 27, 2021. Today began with intense thunder as a front arrived right as we were letting the dogs out for their morning release. Our young one, Ramble, is afraid of the dark (really!) but will (usually) go out with just a hint of dawn (having not been out since dusk the night before). This morning she balked. Enticed onto the back porch (porch light on) for breakfast alongside elderly companion Buttercup, I closed the back door and settled into the porch rocker to wait awhile.

Quite a scene ensued – our cat Brie had slipped out also. Brie and Ramble each enjoy teasing the other, and the whole back porch was rocking with their ruckus. Buttercup and I observed. And waited.

And I thought of Lilie (Tea and Toast with Kindness) who often posts Zen bits of wisdom and observation from early hours. I tried closing my eyes to “let it be” but Brie would not let it be! Thus, this poem emerged. Lilie, this one’s for you.

Image is from a prior somewhat-calmer togetherness. Clockwise from top: Brie, Buttercup, Ramble

Cumulative

July 27, 2021. Traveling again.  Collectively adapting to togetherness in limited space of the Airstream.  Patterns that worked in the past require adaptation with addition of a 2^nd Labrador  – doubling obstacles in hallway and accumulation of fur thus increasing our desire to all get outside!  Of course, periodically we have to maneuver around dogs and each other to clean house.  Usually this realization sends both humans and Labs into a tizzy.  After recent sweeping up of fur and frustrations, I was struck with the absurdity of it all … and how I thoroughly enjoy indulgence in travel, complete with challenges and chores.  A togetherness bonding experience!  Affections in all directions growing steadily.

Where Are You?

Sunday, February 28, 2021. Coming up on one year since we all went into panic and pandemic shutdown. I happened onto this poem I wrote early into the shutdown – set aside to post after all the craziness subsided. Well, it didn’t. Maybe won’t ever. I’m still looking for things … we have concluded RVing makes sense (we isolate just as well in the Airstream as the house) … we now have the first of our 2 vaccines … yet for the foreseeable future we’ll keep masking and distancing.

One big change triggered by 2020 social demands was my husband’s retirement at end of the schoolyear. He did NOT enjoy teaching from home and anticipated (correctly as it turns out) that fall 2020 would not look much different. So he bailed a year earlier than planned. Being continually together, we’ve been discovering all sorts of things about one another we wouldn’t have thought to seek, let alone known what to ask, where to look … resulting in many amusing moments akin to this gloves episode.

Together Now

January 24, 2021. Took a walk this afternoon with my aging and declining Labrador Buttercup.  Walking with her is a great opportunity to reflect on recent triggers, and today I paused half-way to jot down the gist of this poem.  I was triggered by today’s post from Ken Gierke whose poem Now was triggered by today’s post of Memorial by Ron. Lavalette.  My thanks to both.

Ken Gierke @ https://rivrvlogr.com/2021/01/24/now-3/

Ron. Lavalette @ https://rlavalette.wordpress.com/2021/01/24/memorial/

Around The Block

August 30, 2020. My caregiver role now over, I shift back into prior norms. With an added daily walk. Suggested for a long time by my husband as a good idea, I am now following the example of my departed son. This collage reflects images along the route that likely caught his eye.

Odd Hours, Odd Moments

May 9, 2020.  COVID-19 makes for odd times, the new normal ever evolving.  I feel my sense of time (days, hours) slipping further and further from the forefront of thoughts and actions.  I’ve begun putting routine tasks on my calendar, but then I forget to open it, and oops!  Two days late dosing the pets with monthly heart-worm preventive.   This poem was written in those hours that challenge my dating the page:  is it still yesterday or already tomorrow?  I had great fun creating the collage, though difficult to choose which of the 40 photos taken of our first 2020 echinopsis cactus bloom.  So many petals, so many angles, so intriguing to steadily observe, wishing I could slip between  petals for a snooze.     

Summoning Sleep Angels

February 14, 2020:  Insomnia.  Some nights prove unsleepable.   As though I’m being kept awake by invisible energies, wearing down my cognitive defenses that I might receive some message, some vibration from the Universe.  I often happily honor such wee hours … but when the coming day demands I be alert reasonably early … well, then I summon the Sleep Angels.

 

No mistaking the effectiveness of repetitive motion, in a dark room, with a cat purring.  I’ve collaged my trusty glider with an angel photographed 3 years back (knew I would want that image down the line!)

 

 

 

Haverhill Solo Hours

September 26, 2019.  Periodically, I get lonesome for times, places past.  One such evening, I dug out this poem about just such evenings … and went to work on a collage to capture the primary elements of mini-trampoline, best-ever rocker, parquet floor.  I added a dream catcher to symbolize the only way I can go back.  Haverhill is an extension of West Palm Beach, Florida – where my first husband and I built the house (1970-1973) – where my kids came to be (1974 and 1977) – where the kids and I continued to live after Dad departed in 1979, up until I brought the kids to my origins in Texas (1986).  If I could’ve figured a way to bring that house along to Texas, I would be rocking in it still!