what's emerging?

Formal words continue to elude me. As I wrote yesterday, thoughts seem to be forming more in colors and images. Please join me at lucy creates!!! today to see what emerged this morning. I found great comfort & peace there. I hope you will, too.

what color is your world?

My mind seems to be operating in colors these days. The purple, golden and aquas of my quilt. The glorious changing colors of the trees—burgundy, rust, deep plum and brilliant yellow. The fluorescent green turf of soccer fields. The gray fog-filled sky before the sun breaks through to brilliant azure. And so, this morning my offering is this piece penned while on retreat at Camp Cross in early September.

Blue. I raise my eyes from the written page and I see blue. Water. Sky. Mountains, too. Dark. Light. Rippling. Still. Streaked with gentle white clouds & punctuated by fluffy balls of cotton.

Blue. Surrounded by sentries of green pines. The waves gently moving. In & out. Away & toward. The motion churns my stomach until we become one. Molecules of water—all. Why should we be separate?

Blue. My jacket is blue. My heart, too. The sadness stirring deep within. Inside the depths. It starts as a ripple. Surface smooth. Deep inside I have all I need. The fish deep within the dark pool. Safe inside the womb. Free from the raging hurricane above.

Blue
Water Sky
Mirror of God
Holding me Washing me
You

What color is your world?

quilt of life

What a glorious weekend! Full. Slow. Balanced. Sunny. Crisp. Fall weather. The colors of purple and gold with a little aqua bringing my new quilt together. Like pieces of life. Each piece essential. Each with its own personality. Some bold & brilliant saying, ‘play with me. laugh with me.’ Others muted and dark. Purple in every hue. Bits of black punctuating the surface. Gold—brilliant and shining like golden moments tucked into a day. Glorious moments of life. This weekend was filled with them.

Sitting in the sun while watching my daughter play soccer. The green turf gleaming in the bright light. Crisp autumn leaves blowing across the field. Date night with my husband. So wonderful to tuck my arm in his as we strolled through the brisk fall night. The train ride to Bellingham. Early morning quiet combined with excitement for the day ahead. A new adventure. A new friend.

The morning was cloaked in darkness. Me, cocooned inside the metal tube. A perfect seat—window on the water side. Slowly moving past the landmarks I know so well. It is odd to see them from this viewpoint. A tourist in my own land ☺. Moving along the shoreline, the herons stand like sentries at their posts. I try to capture the elusive birds with my camera—an impossible task as the train speeds by. Today, however, I still see them in flight and standing guard. They are indelibly marked in my memory. A golden patch of my day.

My thoughts turn again to the snapshots of my mind like pieces of the quilt. The dark spots that grab for attention and the golden moments that shine like new morning light. All of the other times seem to blend together—some standing out a little more than others. We need them all to make the full blanket—the quilt that covers our heart—that keeps us warm & protects us from harm. The thread that brings us comfort and binds us together to make us who we are. I feel blessed to have a Technicolor life—full of golden moments, blue skies and, yes, even dark patches to punctuate my existence.

So, I wonder: What colors punctuate your life these days? What is the thread that holds together the quilt of your life? Do tell, please.

photos taken 10.25.08 on the Amtrak to Bellingham (If you look closely, you can see one of the "elusive" herons in the top photo.)

another good-bye OR end of an era

This time the good-bye is not one of living breathing sorts, but rather it is a farewell to our 1993 Previa mini-van. As of today, I am officially no longer a mini-van mom. It is with mixed emotions that I say this farewell for indeed it feels much more like the end of an era rather than the sale of a car.

I can still picture the day nearly 15 years ago when my husband called and asked me to come test drive this gem he had just found. Things moved pretty quickly and before I knew it, he had returned to work and I was left at the car dealership with two very small children (aged 4 and one.) The three of us were there for what seemed like hours, but at the end of the day I was no longer a BMW-driving yuppie and had officially joined the ranks of Soccer moms everywhere (even though soccer would not be introduced into our lives for four more years.)

It feels funny to have this little tug pulling at my heart as I sit waiting for the new owner to come pick up the car. As I wait, my life (or at least the last 15 years) seems to flash before my eyes. I can feel the hundreds of trips between our home and the little Christian elementary school both kids attended. My daughter and I picked Curry up in this van. His favorite spot became the space between the driver and passenger seats where he regally held court as we went through many a drive through and he was lavished with doggie treats while the kids received candy or stickers. I see the road trips we took--traveling as far as Penticton, Canada for the Canadian Ironman and south to California for Christmas with dear friends.

My kids grew up in that car and I guess I probably did too. We considered saving it for our son to drive, but the thought of a teenage boy with all that space stirs up memories of my own youth and I shudder at the thought. We have considered selling the car for more than a year now. In the back of my mind, it seemed in many ways to be Curry’s car. He never liked sedans or smaller vehicles until he experienced the joy of my VW convertible. In later years he could not climb into taller cars and so we kind of kept the van around—just in case…

So, 'just in case' has come and gone. It is time to say good-bye. Good-bye to the van. Good-bye to an era. That car is full of amazing memories and I hope many more will be accumulated as I turn it over to its new owner—a mom with three small children. Her brother knocked on our door last night inquiring if we would like to sell it. Evidently his sister’s car (another Previa) had been totaled by a drunk driver and they have little money to spare. We had a family conference to decide if we would sell it for less than ½ the blue book value to a man who was potentially scamming us. My daughter put things in a way only a teenager can when she said, “Really…who would try to scam us for that piece of you know what!?!??!?” My thought was that even if it was a scam, the man appeared to be less fortunate than we and my hope is that the new/old car would somehow benefit him and his family. (Gee, that sounds more magnanimous than I really feel! ☺) It also feels like time to say good-bye. Time to do a little de-cluttering as Sunrise Sister has recently reminded us.

Well...the car may be gone and the street therefore a little less cluttered, but the memories will last a lifetime (especially since I decided to write a few of them down ☺.)

meeting liberty

It is a picture perfect fall day here in the Pacific Northwest. The sun is shining. The leaves are just starting to turn and the air has that wonderful little nip to it. Over the past several months I have turned into a “destination” walker which means I am usually on my way to an appointment or errand during my morning stroll. This morning it was a visit to the chiropractor. I realized as I walked that I have been avoiding my camera lately—ever since I requested and received Photoshop Elements for my birthday.

This morning, however, I decided to push past my hesitancy and take some photos with the hope of spending time immersed in learning at least how to crop and tune my photos up a bit. Alas, the camera rebelled and the battery died in the midst of the very first photo. So, I was left with only my photographic memory to capture the details of the day.

On my return home, I found myself walking through the park behind an older gentlemen and his golden retriever. I picked up the pace to catch up with them, because I cannot bypass the opportunity to receive a little “golden” love since the death of Curry. My selfish tendencies were in high gear and this was all about me getting what I needed this morning.

I politely asked if I could love on his dog for a minute and then felt like I had come face to face with the reincarnation of my old sweet guy. “He’s thirteen,” the owner announced. A lump in my throat, I confessed that we had just lost our 13-year-old golden. What ensued was a gentle and kind retelling of the last days and moments of Curry’s life. The owner asked me questions like “How did you know when it was time?” “Was it peaceful?” “Did he suffer?” Somewhere in the conversation, I realized that this moment was not just for me. Liberty’s (the dog) owner was entering his own process of letting go and had needed some reassurance that they would get through it. I am so grateful I was there to be that reassurance.

Much of this meeting reminds me of my recent post, “life cycles.” There was something in this encounter that spoke deeply of emptying and filling. I have not decided yet how the process transpired. Who was filled and who was emptied? Does it even matter? What I do know is that I followed my heart seeking what I needed in the moment to help me with my own grieving process and in the midst I met another person who had his own sorrow to share. Oddly, both of us walked away comforted. I will remember Liberty and his owner for quite some time. At first site Liberty appeared to be the ghost of Curry, but now I am pretty sure he was an angel. Dang, I wish I had my camera! ☺