the blue muse

and

listening

listening

listening

to everything

again

.

the empty spaces

speak the loudest

.

a lesson learned

repeated

and turned

into growth

or lack

of knowledge

.

listening

.

.

.

I spent two days this past week cutting back the outrageously overgrown yews in front of my house, a project that has needed to be done for years, a project with a small window of opportunity, one that I have missed more than once. It’s a messy job, a difficult job, a job for someone stronger and more flexible than I, but I was determined to get it done, now, in this year that is beginning to feel like a watershed one.

I am scratched and bruised and my back hurts, and my completed task revealed all the places on my house that now need repainting, but I can see the sky from my bed again. There is more light inside, and more light is always a good thing.

Inside, I have a new mess, boxes to tackle after my 89-year-old friend moved out of her home into a long-term care facility, gifts she handed down, pieces to cherish and find special homes for. I haven’t figured out yet what to do with everything, nor what to do with the cracks in my heart, but somehow chopping those bushes down was related. I needed to cut and saw and grunt and curse and accomplish something. Maybe I needed to be in control of one small thing for a few hours. Maybe I needed to let off some steam. Maybe I needed to let some things go.

I’ve come to understand that it all gets more complicated as life goes on, that peace will always be slipping through my fingers, that there will never be time for everything, that standing in my yard with the wind in my hair is the best that some weeks will offer.

I’ve come to understand that it’s not accomplishments that matter either, it’s the love behind them that counts.

I’ve come to understand that sometimes survival is a matter of cutting out the parts that block the sun, paring things down to the bone, making space for new growth.

The imperfections I’ve revealed aren’t what’s important. The blemishes matter less than the light.

Looking out, I can only see sky, and the rain washing everything clean.

Every day, I learn.

The wounds heal, the wind blows, we all grow.

Today, that’s what I know.

.

.

.

I made it through a six-day migraine and then my dog got sprayed with a skunk.

That pretty much sums it up in one sentence.

But that doesn’t include the whole day spent trying to clean up skunk-smell, because somehow my husband let the dog back in the house without realizing what had happened and the dog ended up on our bed, or the fact that this all happened at 4:30 in the morning, or the fact that the smell made my headache come back, and I’m already way behind on my work… but you get the point. It was a long week. A real week.

Another reminder the Mother Nature always wins.

And sometimes, all you can do is laugh.

The daffodils in this photo spent the winter under a five-foot-high pile of snow. And even so, they will bloom.

And as Ralph Waldo Emerson said in his poem, Hamatreya:

“Earth laughs in flowers.”

And there you have it.

.

Wishing you a weekend filled with laughter.

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