April Kicks off National a lot of things month!

Well I am writing 30 poems in 30 days again this year. I did the challenge last year and felt really great by the end with some decent poems amongst the rabble. I post all daily ventures and give myself 10 minutes to write them. Occasionally, I break the 10 minute rule, but most often stick with it. Check out other poets on the NaPoWriMo page.
Please join me in writing if you are so inclined. You don't have to post them, but if you do write I'd love to see one that your are proud of when the month is done or if you'd like to share them and don't have a place to do that---you can join me on my page!
I informed my hubby that it was poetry month and National Autism Awareness Month and then he listed all the things that organizations claim in April. The list is pretty daunting when put together.
National Humor Month
International Guitar Month
Keep America Beautiful Month
Lawn and Garden Month
National Pecan Month
National Welding Month
Records and Information Management Month
Stress Awareness Month
Confederate History Month
Financial Literacy Month
School Library Month
Earth Awareness Month
Math Awareness Month
He dared me to write a poem mentioning each of these or using them. I can't resist a dare. It took me about a couple of hours all told, but it is better then I thought it could be and not at all like the draft I roughed out in ten minutes.
Keep me honest and let me know if I missed something. I think I got it all at least in passing or spirit.

Bending the Strings in Blues

Someone once asked me

What kind of bloke am I

That I can’t take a joke?

“Take a joke?” I quipped

I informed him,”I was thoroughly equipped

To find an unequal equation most humorous”.

He thought I had great hubris

Then I told him he didn’t understand

The full meaning of that word

How absurd to assign hubris to a humble school librarian

Whose roots were completely agrarian

Going back to the Civil War days

Harvesting pecans for those who didn't deserve spit.

And might I add, I had records to attest to it.

My people sweated long days under the Georgia Sun

It was no fun to be sweltering like a welder in a crucible

It was cruel.

He apologized commenting that he had no idea

That his remark had triggered this litany of Confederate History

We both starred at the lawn rich and green

Like it would produce a transition to the scene

I spied a flyer he had dropped and picked it up

Telling him not to litter as it was “Keep America Beautiful” month

“Ah yes” he agreed, “but it isn’t my flyer”

“What does it say?” I asked “Is it a house buyer?”

“A what?” he said like he didn’t understand the game.

“You know, “I buy houses for cash!” Old Whatshisname”.

“No, not that, “he said, “it looks like a flyer on financial literacy”

He quoted,“Be all that you can be in the Money Ranker’s Army!

We help you build the wealth in stealth

Taking the stress out and increasing your health!

Check our record, we will keep you unfettered!”

“The information in those records must be overwhelming!” I stated.

“It kind of stresses me out to think about,” he capitulated.

“Me too,” I crooned.

“To me,” he said,”to distress is a night out on the town listening to some smooth blues.”

“What would you use?” I asked straightforward.

“Pardon?” he puzzled.

“What is your preference?” I attuned.

“I suppose,” he ventured “A sharp shootin’ fella belting out a GatemouthBrownesque tune.”

My heart leapt,”And the axe of choice to give it voice?”

He cast out, “A MartinD-28?”

“Or a…a…” and our eyes met in that fateful state

We exclaimed,”A Gibson Firebird!”

He looked stricken and I stiffened as he inquired,

”Hey, would you like to go out on a date?”

I didn’t know what to say.

Did he not see my autism? Had it gone away?

I nearly ran inside to hide, but he repeated it and added this,

“Not many women I know would know about the Firebird and I know this is absurd,

But I like you with all your quirks. Please don’t think me a jerk.

I was trying to ask you out all this time. A real date on my dime.”

“I would like to say yes to your proposed meeting.” I stammered,

“You often give me a nice greeting. I…I…I…will say yes to your request.”

We made it to hear smooth blues,

He told me a joke, “What did the guitar say to the guitarist?”

(Though he had to explain it as he is the artist)

The punchline is “Pick on someone your own size”.

I laughed looking into his eyes.

Eyes that see me as I am

Autistic, intelligent and loving the same bands

I know today I’ve made a very good friend

All these conversations bridging our gaps

We still go around in many laps

But those blue notes still bend and bend and bend.

Clarence Gatemouth-Brown playing his Gibson Firebird and fiddle

Pockets of Pond Water

The boy was feeling fine by the time he went to bed last night, but he still had a mini-melt down to end the evening. It may have been the day of being home, but feeling not completely himself all day and then a burst of energy and then poof! A firecracker-flash over nothing really, but something that sets him a bit on edge when well and a quick bright burn and flash to anger when not. I think because I told him I wasn't going to be home too on Saturday and he wasn't ready to let that be a change in his life.

I spent the day today with thespians in Olympia listening and listening to students, writing and writing about what I saw students perform, and talking and talking to other theatre peeps I see so seldom as we are scattered across the city doing various projects always. It was restful, draining, and encouraging at the same time.

When I got home there was a surprise in a young man that was our boy's first ABA tutor was visiting us unexpected as he was just up in Edmonds for the day. As he spoke about where we began working with my son after his autism diagnosis I was flooded with the feelings of those very muddy waters of where it all officially began. I also saw a much more confident and amazing young man standing before me that is now working as a special education preschool teacher---inspired he says by our son and the work he did with him when he was 3. I'm so proud of my son and his progress in life and this young man's journey---his calling and taking up the challenge and that it suits him well. He loves it.

He left after a nice visit and my dear husband went to lie down for a nap. So my son and I settled into a routine. The radio blaring our local NPR station and us taking turns on a game on the computer---at some point the world just stopped for a moment and gave me a pocket of quiet to settle into as my little boy climbed into my lap and said, "Mama, you went to Olympia today."

ME: Yes, I did. Did you miss me?

BOY: Hmmmm...(his thinking sound just like it is written it sounds) I think I did miss you.

ME: You think you did? Don't you know if you missed me?

He took his hands and cupped them on either side of my face and looked right at me for just a moment and said, "I did miss you from the moment I got up today. I missed my Mama." Then he turned away from me and settled his body into the pocket on my lap and leaned in for a kiss. You see he knows if he leans in like that he'll receive one. I gave him a kiss and he got up and excitedly ran around the room in response. This was more of a victory romp that he does hundreds of times a day, but this is his extra special "something extra special has happened” romp that celebrates with his body dancing as he does this sound that comes from a happy hum inside him. He does this in a happy bouncy run making a circuit of our living room and kitchen and back to where I am on the couch.

And then the room rushed back in with all the noise and complications of artistic lives and autism and each other. A few years ago I never thought I could have this much conversation with him and now yes, he is articulate even in some ways and in some moments, but for finding more footing in his understanding and our understanding him, sure we've got a ways to go.

My going somewhere even for the day is getting harder in some ways and I miss those more flexible moments where it didn't matter if I was there or not so I just took off to "do my thing", but truly I wouldn't trade that false freedom for this moment of connection---a connection that seems to get stronger. A moment that feels more defined and the waters are muddy, but it has all settled to the bottom for this very moment and if I don’t move or breath I can see where I’m standing. I see my feet sinking down in this squishy, gooey mud where I feel very stuck. So stuck, will I get out? No, I can wiggle my toes and the water is still clear. I can swim here. I know it.

Our lives are a bunch of unimagined moments. I never thought I'd be where I am or what I'd be doing except in that little girl that loved words somehow got here and somehow plays with words for a living. My son has always loved words even when he spoke very few of them he still loved them more than anything. He had a set of refrigerator magnets that were the alphabet and he'd spend hours arranging them into words. We had sets of them everywhere in the house, the car, and on any metal surface as it was the way we communicated and he played. We played or tried to by playing with words. He was barely two and a half and that is all he wanted to do. So of course he talks and wants to communicate. Why couldn't I see this coming?

This is a pocket I will put things into and keep. I will take them out in the quiet moments and reflect on what they are and then celebrate that we have them, they have value, and I never know what wonderful thing will plop down into my pocket again someday. On a day, when I've given out and perhaps even given in or felt pushed away---I'll see the journey dancing in my living room. I know the joy of a kiss after a day away. And I will listen, write, and talk playing with the words we have---letting go of imagining what could be or can be or should be or might be. This is my extra special moment today.

Feeling fleeced about the snow...

2012 outside our window

Nearly everything related to snow today was a bit surreal in my neck of the woods (or perhaps in the weeds?).  My son went from having a pretty bad day yesterday to all sweetness and light because it was snowing finally. I know those of you in the Midwest, East, and even my Southern friends can’t conceive of this winter without snow, but last year we had one day and this year so far we’d only had one day. Many people around here, myself included, have been longing for a good snow after seeing all the many pictures relatives and friends have posted for us to see. We were predicted an inch of snow yesterday and we got I think two whopping inches last night.
A hush descend upon our neighborhood as soon as it began snowing. It was so eerie and beautiful as only snow can be at night. After we gathered a little accumulation it lit up outside nearly as bright as day with the reflected lights. It was magical with that light and the crystal-like glitter gloss that blanketed the super fluffy northwestern snow. I couldn't sleep because I wanted to just sit looking out the window at the wonder and soak in that lyrical hush.

My son in real snow 2012

However, as soon as we got up and our son heard the forecast, the quiet was shattered with screams followed by huge crocodile tears. Through the sobs we discovered this all had to do with that he couldn't appreciate the beautiful snow that was all around us, because on the forecast it said that hour by hour it would warm up to the point that by mid-morning while we were slotted to be in church it would be melting or melted. We somehow got through the morning messy child outbursts and safely to church for our early morning music call (late). And he was nearly out of steam for round #1 by the time I walked him into Sunday school.

When I took him to his Sunday school class another little boy that I don't know very well got nearly nose to nose and eye to eye with me to tell me with an impassioned explanation in an excited almost whisper of "how to make the perfect snowball". I thought this little boy's bounce over to me was a one-time thing, but I think I'm a good listener in such situations because he came back several times in that ten minutes to tell me his many morning adventures with his perfect snowball. He was cute, but needs to learn about personal space which reminded me of my son to tell the truth. (Hmm...perhaps they could become friends and then it wouldn't be an issue?)

Walking up our hill 2012

Church was refreshing and I didn't think about snow until I went to go get my son who now also no longer distracted turned his focus back to the now rapidly melting snow. We tried many tactics to try to get our son to leave church, but he became fixated on kicking the snow just at the base of the outside church main steps. No, telling him he could kick the snow at home or anywhere else just produced much screaming and crying. Many other tactics were applied, but I hand it to my creative husband for coming up with the winner that got our fitful fussy child to the car. After nearly an hour and half of this he struck upon the bargain with him that if he got in the car and came home with us as soon as we got home we would fill a gallon zip lock with all the snow we could and put it in the freezer. Martin confessed when we were underway that I can thank Bill Cosby for that bit of inspiration. (Thanks Bill!)

We also took turns holding his hand on the way home so he could be brave in what you would think were scenes of war he was witnessing on the way home, but it was merely large swaths of bare wet sidewalks and slushy streets. And if you've never driven with the radio up tuned to Moth radio stories and your son melting down screaming, "drive faster---it's melting there won't be any left!" It is bracing.

We returned home just as round #2 meltdown (forgive the pun) was dwindling. We rushed in the house as promised scooping up precious heavy, wet, sloppy stuff that resembled snow and shoved it in the freezer. His plan is to dump it out of the bag in the shade on March 21---the first day of spring because spring is when it can melt---it will no longer be winter. We should have just flown to one of our snowy relatives for the winter and he would be so very happy because we would be where it is supposed to snow in winter.

Today he kept telling me we have to sell our house and move to somewhere that is snows in the winter. He so wants all the elements to do what they are “supposed” to do just like everything else in his life. When the rain pours in spring, the sun is hot in summer, and the leaves fall in autumn my son is deliriously happy, but all the winter pictures don’t show cold----I mean they do and they do it by showing snow. It is the one thing that makes him grumpier than any other weather “change of plan”.

I do get this to an extent in that there are things we are told from a very young age to count on and weather is one of those things. The seasons and what they do and how they are represented is ground into our beings from early on in our lives. When those things don’t line up, it must be to some people very unsettling as it makes them question what is constant if not the seasons and what should be seasonal weather? So, I do in some ways understand his deep sorrow over the snow melting and being here so briefly when it is in the middle of our winter.

I took all of this as an opportunity to talk about change and transitions. What is expected? Does the world end if the unexpected happens? Now, he said at his most dramatic point of the day that if the snow melted he would die and it sounds funny, but utterly heartbreaking amidst earnest sobs and a need crying from somewhere deep. 

I simply met his gaze saying, “The snow is melting, but it will come again and again and again.”

He retorted, “When Mama? No, it won’t. It’s melting.”

Capturing the melting during the storm

Taking his hand again,”And that’s ok.” A panicked look met mine, “But remember what Papa said, it is part of a cycle that it melts, evaporates, goes up into the sky to form clouds, and comes back down sometimes as rain and when cold enough as snow.”

His attempt at trying to sled 2012

“But…but…but in winter it must snow!” he wails, “God didn’t listen to me, I want snow!” I admit I burst out laughing when he said this as it echoes my own childish wanting to make God do what I want at times. Regaining my footing, “No honey, we can ask but God, but I think when it comes to weather there is a bigger reason he brings what he does then a little boy that wants snow because it is winter---but feel free to ask and see what he says.” I think because they were studying Gideon today in Sunday school this weirdly satisfied him at the moment and he went down to just whimpers about the snow. It is a challenge now for him now to ask for the thing he wants most snow in winter. It made me think that God sometimes wants us to ask and ask and ask to keep the dialogue with us going. He gives us the unexpected in seasons of our lives where we think we know exactly what is coming and we can ask for what we expect, but we need to be ready for perhaps an unseasonal turn of events. It made me think that even when we get a taste of what we want or think we most want it is not that God teases us if it melts all too quickly, but perhaps we needed the moisture more than the pretty and fun snow. The moisture will feed what grows. Ok, now I'm stretching this a bit, but I was so feeling my young Gideon's pain with him and musing over this life lesson that was trying to burst forth from this moment.

He's not so sure he wants another run.

Somehow we rebounded a bit and got through the rest of the day as he read weather predictions to me and told me there was an earthquake today by the Olympic Mountains. (Did any of you know that?) He teaches me all kinds of things I would otherwise miss on most days. Night fell and exhausted he fell into what I hope is a peacefilled slumber. We said our first, I'm sure, of many prayers requesting snow as his ferver for it has been renewed.

If the Arctic Blast hits the Northwest we all will know why. As soon as it came it is nearly all gone out there tonight. The noisy sirens and traffic sounds returning along with sloppy slick rain sliding through our neighborhood. Nothing much to keep me awake tonight. Perhaps I’ll dream of sliding on a diamond carpeted hillside in the French Alps along with my son and husband or snow just outside my window.

A visit from the structure monster

Here is the quote I posted on my Facebook timeline that began this blog entry that really was the beginning of a stutus update. "When we are no longer able to change a situation---we are challenged to change ourselves." -----Victor E. Frankl 

And I ask yesterday's pithy quote what do you do when it is someone else you'd like to change? she quips at 3:28 a.m. Yep, “mean boy” took over our bed tonight and I'm done trying to battle him to get some sleep. Nope, I can’t go to the only other bed as our sweet niece is in it and she will have to get up to go to the airport a half an hour from now to leave for Atlanta.

That is probably why “mean boy” is visiting our bed tonight. He warned us all day that he was going to be “mean boy” in our bed and I didn't believe it as he hugged and kissed on me, but it is like a predicted Jekyll and Hyde transformation, I'm telling you or a full moon and the wolf comes out. We know it's coming, but we are hoping for a new solution!  And he tells me these things with an adorable grin on his face and often giggling, so hard to take that seriously, but I should know better.

Ah, well. Praying Martin did sleep through a lot of that and can function to take the poor girl to the airport because I'm going to be a wreck? I hope once she goes and Martin gives up on our bed I can settle the boy down enough we can both get a few hours sleep.

The boy is unsettled and has been all break. Oddly enough, I long for him to start school on Monday. As much as he used to fight school, now he longs to be there as it is the routine that keeps him steady or steadier.

I am challenged to change myself to find ways to not fight against structuring our lives more. To be honest, it is something I've fought against all my life as I don't like it. It feels unnatural to me. When faced with a recipe I follow it sort of, but hardly ever to the letter. I take great pride on messing with recipes and "improving" them. I have a good track record doing this and am a terrific cook, so why follow a recipe? Recipes are for wimps.

I have a terrible time being on time for just about anything and this is something I've worked on my entire life, but early or on time feels weird to me and I know that is weird and irritating to most people I know---it is a comfortable thing for me to be running behind and I have been that way for as long as I remember. It is part of my "nature" I do try not to nurture despite my reputation; it is something I work on daily and some days hourly. Despite feeling that way, I don't like how it affects others and how they feel about me.

So in our boy, I see this fighting against his nature too. Really I do, despite this 3 a.m. litany. The other day he hit me because I did something I knew he wouldn't like. He has this intense and I mean intense need for the radio to be on all day every day and we've battled all break to cut it down from 24 hours a day to just during the day, but the radio can't be touched or turned off in two rooms of the house. He pretty much worships KUOW as the only radio station and it must be ON. 

Well, they announced that there was going to be a story not appropriate for children as it was about female circumcision coming on and I appreciate them giving the radio listeners such warnings occasionally. If it was a month ago, I could turn it off after the warning and he wouldn’t do anything, but it is during this intense time of the radio is everything, so I knew it might be dicey. He was involved in something at the computer and I was hoping he wouldn't notice right away. If we could have it off for those few precious moments and then I could just turn it back on when it was all clear as these stories usually last about three minutes life would be good. Oh no, he noticed in the precise moment I turned it off. And even though I explained why to him, he hit me hard several times and fought like a wildcat to turn it back on.

One goal was accomplished that way in that we really didn't hear the story as we were working out what just happened and why. Plus the few minutes I blocked him getting to the radio and him pummeling me with his fists. Not pleasant, but the story was pretty much over by the time he got it back on and we were still working out what had just happened.

We worked out what it means to be kind or mean. He came to his own conclusion and began sobbing when he realized he had been unkind even though he was accusing me of being unkind by turning the radio off. It took me the better part of a couple of hours to work through this with him that by hitting me he was being mean. The sobbing was him realizing it. He couldn’t say what it was until after a couple of hours crying and just wanting to be held. 

You have to imagine it: Calm with the radio on, radio off and fury, radio back on and him talking loudly about what just happened while physically running around, jumping and working through it and then total sudden collapse into sobbing. There is no in between. No slide into these moments. It is like a very rough cut movie where the editor wanted to keep you off balance so no transitions ever just “jump cuts”.  Epiphany--- this is why transitions are so hard for him as they don’t exist in his world perhaps? Wow, I’ve never thought of that.

And I just now writing realized that the radio was him creating a routine for himself over break. That is his structure. This is why he wants it on 24 hours a day! This is why he announces each show as it comes on and who works on that show and when. He looks at the schedule written on the web site every day many times a day and announces the schedule just as the program changes. He hasn’t wanted to leave the house at all because he’d miss some radio time. We have gotten him away from it a little, but not as much as we’d like. Don’t get me wrong I do love our local NPR station, but resent them too as I still haven’t posted what the “radio wars” are or what they’ve done to our lives this break.

Ah, the light dawns. Why it took a 3 a.m. vigil to see it, I don’t know. Probably the lack of sleep in general.  And again, I’m the one who is slow on the uptake. I think he wants to be a boy with lots of freedom, but he longs for more structure than I give him. I feel uncomfortable structuring all his time as I longed for the opposite and thrived on the opposite growing up or thought I did and so often think I still do. He’s giving me grand signals that he wants something else. I just told Martin as he popped his head in here asking me what I was working on and he said, “You’re brilliant, why couldn’t we see that?” Because you and I, Dearie, do not seek out structure, but yes that must change for all our survival.

I must clue into the few places of structure in my life in my habits good and ill and see what can stay to create a better life for us. That is why the quote yesterday as I’m trying to overhaul some bad habits or life structures that have crazily been constructed in the past twenty years as a household together me plus my hubby. We both have a lot to learn still and admit to each other we don’t want to live like we do with several things that make it hard to function hanging around us and our house. We know it makes it more difficult for the boy also and as uncomfortable and inconvenient it is, we must “hit it head on” so he can find peace not to fight against us. We are tearing down the old building to put up a much more solid structure to shelter the three of us.

I may call on some of you that are more talented with construction to help me figure out this new way. As I’ve said it isn’t natural, but it will help nurture a better boy. I hope. I pray. What is that serenity prayer? Lord, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Amen and amen.

I just hugged the niece goodbye. They loaded the car and it slipped out into the early morning hours headed for the airport. I’m going to spell check this and post---then try for a couple hours sleep before the boy pops up. Despite his lack of sleep tonight too, he’ll be up in a couple of hours or so as that is his routine. Goodnight all. Amen and amen.

Got hope?

How can my days be so incredibly encouraging and discouraging at the same time? I just looked up the word hope as I have a rock that sits on my desk with that word carved into it. I often overuse the word by saying "I hope...." and something that may be trivial like "I hope you have a nice day." But what really is it to hope? There were all kinds of definitions of the word but the one that stops me short is "to desire with expectation of obtainment".

Isn't it human to desire and sometime know you have your back to the wall or up against impossible odds and yet still have a huge hope you can beat the odds? You desire obtainment, but is it really the expectation? Do I expect to always obtain? I feel greedy praying with expectation of obtainment like I'm demanding my way or the highway, but I feel false and faltering of faith to not expect what I'm asking be granted.

“Ask and it shall be given unto you…” What isn’t said clearly is that it isn’t a one to one exchange. We can ask, but the answer isn’t always the one we imagined was the answer to the question. That takes us back to expectations. Is the answer sometimes asking us to change what we expect to happen? Is the point in asking to change the person that is asking? Change me to see beyond my expectations to what? That is where the picture gets murky for me. How can I change the questions when I can only see one answer?

Often I'm desperate for a change in a predicted outcome like when both my brother's lives hung in the balance. My expectations weren't met, but I understood that was a possibility. My hopes weren't met. I miss them and they died way too early. I had hoped that wouldn't be the case.

I had hope when I auditioned for way too many grad schools and got in to the one I thought impossible to be accepted into and I graduated from there too. Surviving it at times seemed a bit hopeless at the time, but my hopes carried me through. However my hope was met not in the way I expected at all.  

When my son was born and I wasn’t supposed to be able to have a child at all, but I was granted one. Soon after the diagnosis of autism came and things changed for us as a family again. Yes, not what we expected or hoped, but he is still a gift and quite amazing. He is what makes me stop and ponder such things as the nature of hope. He makes me change my expectations and in many ways gives me hope and stretches my definition of hope. I wait and hope for a good future, but my hopes change daily in each moment.

My son is brilliant and an incredible human being who teaches me how to hang on to hope. He is a tenacious boy filled with hopes and dreams of all kinds. His dreams are often my dreams for him also. He wants so much. I want it for him or with him to encourage him, but I’m discouraged by his fears and the hidden things that seem to overwhelm that hope, those dreams, and our moments of connectedness. I stumble around trying to help and I’m so afraid I’m hurting what we hope for.

It puts a new spin on that phrase in O Little Town of Bethlehem“....the hope and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight." This Christmas, I think about what is that hope I have in Christ? What does it mean to set aside my fear and hope for something better? Or is that what the song is talking about? The hope and fear of all the years….my years….your years are met in Emanuel, God with us. He is with us and for us despite our stumbles. May your hope be renewed or revived or resuscitated as you turn your face towards the Christ child tonight.

*Photos: painting of "Magdalene" by Titian above, my son at a Christmas light festival, and a nativity ornament at that same festival "The Lights of Christmas" in Stanwood, WA.

Shoring Up Grace

This poem is about a lot of things right now I’ve been going through and yet about my past also. Things I’m always learning. Written 11/5/2013 after a tough rehearsal night with a new script.

Reconstruction

I am so aware of what is hers and what I’ve created around it

The shaky form that held within its promise

I was drawn to it, barely knowing what it was

All I knew is that I wanted back in

I wanted to return to doing

To being a part of a family

That I’d dropped out

Become a distant visiting soul

Dancing on the fringes

Of a group of people

I admired

So I waited to come

To hold again a map

Returning me down that road

With bumps and winding

Meanders past deep lakes

That I dive into with eyes

That cannot see past

My own nose

In I plunge

This time over my head

Drowning in words, limits, and love

Struggling in the undertow of dramatic construct

Deconstructing what is there to layer over top

A canvas to make this boat to sail

Fast across that lake

Not weighted down to sink

On the bottom

To skim slick across the top

To get somewhere

I get out at the other shore

Walk down an unknown path

To a golden sun

Burning hot against those hills

Rising emerald green gems

To turn dark blue with cold

As the sun downs behind them

Leaving me alone

Look up, you say

She is gone

Above you are the points far off

That say you are not alone

That guides the boat

Who brought you to the path?

Gave wind to fill the sail

Warmed by the sun and marked it

Going out behind what seemed so green

And then silent black blue

And you were frightened in that silence

Until you turned your eyes away from the depths

Or the storm

Or the path

Above you is an expanse

That goes on and on and on

There is no limit

To the gift of grace given in this moment

You are not ever alone

Frustration Poems

I haven't posted anything of late and I have always been a frustrated poet. Here is today's quick entry on that note.

Perpetual Pea Soup Ponderings

The daily fog outside

Matches me inside these days

And nights reaching for something

That runs far in the distance

An outline of something

I can’t quite make out

Seeing it there in shadow

Through a white translucent curtain 

floating, yet thick enough

Not to know where to go

I nearly run into it

Looming before me

It was there all along

Not what I wanted to find

When will this fog lift?

So I can see things clearly

I wonder and wander alone

And this poem I wrote a couple of

years ago. I know the picture isn't Tiger Lillies, but just imagine. (See the fog behind the flowers and you will get my state these days).

Tiger Lilly Turmoil     

I buy myself flowers now,

You used to bring them to me,

You never question the occasional bright bouquet

I pick up while running errands

To provide some sort of comfort or inspiration into my ordinary existence

Not a secret lover’s flaunt you surmise

You glance and say nothing

They greet us standing soldier silent on the kitchen table

Exotic, fragrant, and bright

How I used to seem

They remind me of what I’ve lost for you

I must to you look like the wilted bunch that lingers at the end of the week

Too good to throw out, but not fresh enough to celebrate

Is there room for new growth?

Not in dry bunches stuck in water that greys with time

I’d rather dig a hole and dive into the ground

Overwintering the frozen storms

Until spring awakens me once more

To emerge reaching skyward  forever bright

returning each spring to bloom once more.

GFCF Lemon Blackberry-Strawberry Coffee Cake

By popular demand I'm posting this. I have grown up baking and cooking. GFCF baking though took a bit of a learning curve this past year to really get any good at it. I tend to not measure, but eyeball a lot of things when I cook and (gasp) bake. Some bakers would swear you can't eyeball anything, but my mother always did and so do I. I make my own jam which went into this cake too, but you can use whatever you like. I hope you make it and enjoy it! I do tend to lean even heavier on the spices, but toned it a little bit down for you all. It was going to be raspberries, but my bush just stopped producing them and the blackberry bush was full plus I had some late summer strawberries in the fridge. You can use whatever berries are on hand and in season!

GFCF Lemon Blackberry-Strawberry Coffee Cake

Dry Ingredients

1 ½ C. Pamela’s GFCF Baking Mix

1 ½ C. GF All Purpose Flour

½ C. Either Garbanzo Bean or Almond Flour

½ Tsp. Salt

2 Tsp. Baking powder

1 Tsp. Baking soda

1 Tsp. Ginger

1 ½ Tsp. Cinnamon

2 Tsp. Cardamom

¼ C. Sugar

Wet Ingredients

½ C. Vanilla Coconut Yogurt (if not vanilla add in 1 Tsp. of vanilla extract)

1 C. Light or regular canned Coconut Milk

1 Lemons (zest and juice)

¾ C. Honey

3 Eggs

Filling and topping

1 TBS Strawberry or Blackberry Preserves (heaping)

Blackberries

Strawberries

1 Lemon (zest and juice)

1 ½  TBS. Brown Sugar

1 Tsp. Cinnamon

½ Tsp. Nutmeg

½ TBS. GF Flour

1 ½ TBS of non-dairy GF margarine melted

Powdered Sugar

½ to ¾ C. Nuts of your choice: Walnuts or pecans are great! (Optional)

If you like a little more lemon, I did end up adding in a little lemon extract too to punch it up a bit. Do that to taste.

Preheat oven at 375. Combine Dry ingratiates. Combine wet ingredients. Combine dry and wet together to make batter. Spray bunt pan and add in ½ the batter. Spoon preserves on top of batter putting as many berries as you wish in this filling. I wouldn’t overfill the middle with berries or it will get super mushy. I probably did ¼ C. of each kind. Spoon in the rest of the batter on top of this.

Prepare topping (or bottoming in this case!):

Combine brown sugar, flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, and lemon zest. Combine with melted margarine or if you are like me and forget the margarine I put the topping on and then go, “Oh the margarine!” and then drizzle it on top of the topping so it will combine. Either way works. It can be easier to forget as the dry stuff goes on easier and covers better that way. Place on top of batter (it will end up being on the bottom when you flip it out of pan). I suppose you could start with this as the first layer if you wanted it on top of the bunt. Bake at 375 for 25 minutes and check to see if done (everyone’s oven is different).

After it has come out and cooled for about 10 minutes. Flip out of bunt pan onto serving plate. Combine a little more preserves with lemon juice and a little powdered sugar to drizzle on top of cake. A light dusting of powdered sugar if you want to make it even prettier. Place berries on top. Eat and enjoy!

Another poem....

My son is into keeping all the windows open at the moment. Even when the nights are dipping down into the low 50s. I have been writing poetry still since April, when I wrote so many, but here is one I wrote this morning that seems blog worthy.

Summer’s Opportunity

You’re opening windows

Insisting that they be not shut

Such an effort to open them

You climb up on a chair to reach

Stretching to your full height

Pulling on stiff levers that secure them

You push them free

Swinging out

Nearly falling yourself

You rock back on your heels

Standing in the silhouette of the sky

Breathing in summer’s sweet release

Hemmed in no more

Science Lecture Captured #1

My son is 8 years old and happens to be autistic. He is gaining more and more interest and knowledge about science. He’s always been fascinated by the weather, but in the last several months plate tectonics has captured his attention. Plus, he is trying to figure out what God does and the view of the Bible. We try to help him figure out all the pieces and theories vs. fact vs. not knowing.

 It is all overflowing with these long rambling lectures as he calls them that he has to “get out”. We interrupted him the other night when he was in the midst of one and tried to put him to bed. He fought us tooth and nail scratching and screaming upset to the maximum until we all got calmer after a while and I figured out it was because we’d interrupted him on his lecture walk. He wanders through the yard outside usually, lecturing to me, the bushes, and the air, but it is a driven moment that he has to do. Plus he has to sleep out on our balcony even though the temperature have been dropping into the low fifties at night (quite cold for summer).

This morning, he lectured me and engaged me some. He spoke loudly, not the whispered lectures of the evening, oh no, this was a proclamation about the morning sun. I finally grabbed a piece of paper getting some of it down verbatim. Some of it I remembered. Here it is in entirety as best I could put it back together. I’m so sorry I missed part of it because he had me laughing at his clever turn of phrase too.

"If I was born was born where the space was born....If I were born when the universe started, we must travel back in time. I'd be born in space in a space suit so I could breathe. I'd come down into the atmosphere onto the planet Earth. As we travel back in time, we'll watch what happens when I'm space born.

First, I’d descend into the ocean. No land. Hurricanes blow up and spit me out. Oh, it is rough. Lots of rain pelting my body. It is somewhat confusing. I go up into the air where there is oxygen and hydrogen and the sun warms me some.

 I plunge into the water. Splash! Thousands of feet below the waves it would be dark. There are underwater chimneys spewing hot liquid. These chimneys would create my first life. Single cell organisms. I think we call it single cell bacteria.

Millions of years and then the stromatolites turn sunlight into food and they make the atmosphere not so toxic. My location is on my island, but then the next two billion years the oxygen level will begin to rise and I’ll be so old. But I sleep every night until each dawn. But I can be reminded I can only sleep outside on the ground. Whatever my body feels like. No blankets.

Five million years ago, I still don’t see more complex life. No plants, dinosaurs, and I can’t see any humans. My Earth looks like a beautiful blue ball and there are volcanic activity in my location. It looks like I push and pull the plates around the globe carrying the islands around the globe.

I will still be in my location and in two billion years there will be a super continent: Rodinia. I see in my location is a desert. My planet has been slow. Eighteen hours, but then my planet looks more like Mars than Earth because of the desert in my location.

750 million years ago in my location, state of Washington, something is happening. A great big super continent is splitting into two continents. A new super continent Pennotia. In just a few thousand years the temperature will plummet in my location thousands of degrees. The cold comes. My body freezes and my body will shake. Thousands of ice sheets will meet and form plates and then meet at the equator.  I will look at the sun to see what the ice is doing. Not even the sun can rescue the planet now.

Millions of years the volcanos start emptying. They erupt in my location too. It creates thick shoots and weak spots and oxygen levels rise. Then it will create more carbon dioxide and push up the temperature in my location. About 600 million years ago the temperature will be warmer acting like a summer’s day.

What about something along the oceans? A slug takes up residence it’s called Olaxia (I think he’s trying to say “atlantics”---I looked it up---a kind of ancient sea slug). There are planets. There are worm sponges and lobsters. Mesonychoteuthis, (I had to write this out phonetically and then look it up to figure out what he was talking about. An ancient type of real Kraken type creature just discovered recently that roamed the seas and was quite aggressive), Mesonychoteuthis is 20 feet long, razor sharp eyes and grasping limbs. And it’s a monster. All it has to do with its razor sharp teeth is take its pick. Rodinia and Pennotia are starting to break apart. The end for now. That’s all.