the blue muse

This weekend I am going to the Adirondack Mountains, one of my favorite places in the world. Well, okay I haven’t been to that many places, but I’m pretty sure that even if I had, it would still be my favorite. Have you ever gone somewhere and just felt like you had come home? That is what happens to me, when I am there.

Years ago, I got in my car and I drove, towards Adirondack Park, but with no other destination, or plan, in mind. I left on a Friday, after work, and started driving. It was during the off-season, something I didn’t know much about, then, but I figured I would be able to find a place to stay.

I drove and I drove, and finally, after a little bit of panic because there really weren’t that many options for places to stay, I ended up in Speculator, NY. Which, with my tired eyes, I read as Spectacular. I still call it that, to this day. And I still remember that trip, alone, checking in at the Melody Lodge, spending the weekend writing poetry. I was young and my first marriage was ending and I thought, then, that I would be a poet.

It was a sad time, but also a wonderful time, there, with my words and my mountains. During the day I drove around aimlessly, exploring towns and mountains and lakes and rivers. I found a spot that felt like a private beach, and I sat there for the longest time, just staring at the water.

I’ve gone back several times, to that same spot. It still feels just the same. Like it belongs to me.

I won’t be alone this weekend, I will be with my family. But in a tiny little corner of my heart, those mountains are my home. My solitary place, my sanctuary.

I will be at peace there, nestled in the trees that rise quietly from the mountains.

There will be no television, or radio, or internet, or cell phone service.

There will just be time and thoughts and words and silence.

There will be fires and food and games and family.

And there will be all that sky,

whispering my name.

she kept running around and around,

wondering if this was the right one.

::

this post is part of one word wednesday over at jillsy girl

I step outside my back door to call for my naughty kittens, and all I can hear are geese.

Thousands of them, having a conversation with the sky. Just down the road from me is this swamp, a perfect stopping-off place on their way south, and they gather here in great flocks. Before they settle in for the night, there will be a fabulous party.

Lots of food will be served, and there is always plenty to drink. Old friends will get reacquainted over gossip about the summer. New friends will be made. Youngsters will be flirting. There may even be a little showing off, in front of that gaggle of girls. Small fights will break out, later.

It is a happy party, raucous and loud and jolly. It is early yet in the season, there is still enough food and warmth and fun to go around. These are the smart geese, the prepared and organized and have-their-lives-together geese.

Later, there will be stragglers, sometimes when it is too cold, the water already frozen. On a gray day in November, I will hear that call and look up to see a lone goose, or a group of three, and I will wonder why they have come so late, what calamity caused their late departure, of if they are just the lazy geese, the not-so-organized ones, those left behind.

Or were they simply not invited to the party?

Soon, winter will be here, knocking on this door that I stand at just now. But today, the trees line my driveway in a riot of color, golds and oranges, purples and greens, reds and yellows. Berries and crabapples drop to the ground like so much confetti. Leaves dance through the air to music only they can hear.

I have my wool socks out, but not yet my boots. A fall jacket, but not yet
my winter coat.

There is still time. This party is not over.

Yet.

there is always a little bit of sunshine,

waiting for you.

what do you do when you wake up and
the world is gray and there seems no chance of sunshine?

what do you do when the list before you stretches longer than your arms?

what do you do when all you really want is to curl up on the couch and read?

what do you do when you are running behind before the day even begins?

what do you do when the colors of fall are hidden in shrouds of mist?

what do you do when your brain feels as scattered as the raindrops?

what do you do when sadness rolls in on waves of fog?

what do you do when you’d rather be writing?

what do you do when everything around you
needs to be cleaned, cared for, put away?

do I have the answers to these questions?

i do not.

i simply have the questions, rolling off my fingers faster than i can type.

dancing around in my hand in a slow, whispy dance, and mocking me
on this day when gray is the color of more than sky.

but these questions are a gift.

or at least, today, i will choose to look at them that way.

i am not afraid of sadness, or blue, or gray, or wistful.

i am not afraid to stand here, in the rain, and wait for the sun.

i am not afraid of fog and mist and lack of focus.

i am not afraid of time that marches on, with me or without me.

i am not afraid of words or metaphors or crazy ideas.

i am not afraid to dust myself off, clear my mind, begin again.

i am not afraid of the blank slate that lies before me every morning,
even when its emptiness intimidates.

i am only afraid

of numbness.

::

for you. yes, you.

Today I am over at Inspiration Studio

with some thoughts on the changing seasons.

Won’t you join me?

::     ::     ::

because it’s that kind of day.

what goes around, comes around.

you live twenty years, thirty, and you think you’ve changed, you think that life has turned you into a different person than the one you were at 15, or 25. And then you go back and read the poetry you wrote way back then, and you see how many things have stayed the same.

it’s kind of funny, really.

and i don’t mean to say that it’s all bad, i discovered some good poems, (along with some awful ones) and i even came across phrases that sounded remarkably similar to things i have written recently. that’s when it hit me, actually, how much the more things change, the more they stay the same.

when i was 17, graduating from high school, i wanted to be a writer, a poet specifically, and then a photographer. or vice versa. or both. i thought i might travel the country and take pictures. and i was accepted into a great college for photography, but i applied so late that i was put on the waiting list.

and then life got in the way.

during the year that followed, the year in which I had to wait, i got married. the day after I turned nineteen. it all seems so incredibly crazy now, my kids are all in their mid-twenties and I can’t even imagine them married. but back then it wasn’t so unusual, and i fell in love and suddenly traveling the country with a camera in my hand faded into the distance.

there was still poetry, lots of poetry, particularly during those angst-filled years when I tried to find my place in the world. and then even more when, seven years later, my marriage ended. (i know, classic timing.) but the poetry, the writing, was always there, although i never pursued it as a vocation.

and now, all these years later, i am right back where I started, writing and taking pictures and that makes me stop and wonder if all this time, in-between then and now, was wasted, at least as far as my art is concerned.

all the pictures that could have been taken,
all the words that could have been written.

this year, in the funny way that life has of pointing you in the right direction, i stumbled upon blogs and blogging, and then I needed pictures and, of course, i had to write, and suddenly i have come full circle, facing that girl again, with her pictures and her words.

only this time, this time, i think i have learned enough
to know better than to turn away.

this time i’m going to walk right up and hug her,
thank her for being there for me, all along

and then i’m going to walk around the next circle,
this next ring in the tree that is my life,
with her in the center as my guide.

remember the challenge put out by debi at emma tree a few weeks ago?

well, my interperation of

just sit there and look pretty

is up over at mrs mediocrity today.

i would love to hear what you think,
and check out all the other pretties, here

it has been a quiet day. not silent, of course, there is never that, but quiet.

part of me feels empty because of it. part of me feels soothed.

i sit here now, late at night in my living room, dog at my feet, television not on, not wanting to disturb the peace.

the windows are open, it was a warm day for fall, not too warm, just perfect.

i hear crickets outside singing away, sounding somewhat frantic, as if they know that very soon the nights will become too cold and then they will be stuck in months of quiet.

a waxing gibbous moon hangs low in the sky, so close to full that I would never know that it isn’t, except that the weatherman says so.

it is autumn, autumn in new york, and you can smell it, the scent of leaves on the ground, a basket of apples, cool nights.

in the field just down the road, the farmer started cutting down corn today, leaving short bare stalks sticking up from the ground, rows of little soldiers bearing witness to the folding in of summer, the boxing up, the putting away.

a surrender that we know must happen, but watch wistfully, just the same.

there is a new package by the back door, but i haven’t opened it just yet, it sits there in crisp wrapping paper, colored in golds and tans, browns and oranges.

i think i’ll leave it out there just a day or two longer,

while i sit here and listen

to summer’s last moment

of silence.

::

this post is part of one word wednesday over at jillsy girl…check it out!