.

"Each friend represents a world in us,

a world possibly not born until they arrive,

and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born."

- Anais Nin

Where You Stumble.

Yes.

Treasure.

Yes.

Originally, I thought this blog would just be a place to bitch and moan and tell stuff and make stuff and keep me honest and it's been a great year of it, but I never suspected I'd meet all you amazing people here. Really.

You have been wonderful. You liars and artists and Buddhists and snake charmers and poets and lurkers and teachers and therapists and scientists and musicians and graffiti artists and truth tellers and cynics and dancers and Canadians and dreamers and silly joke-tellers and cashiers and brilliant kooks and all the rest.

I wanted to say something big and important and fare thee well-ish, but now I'm sitting here with that annoying little cursor flashing. . . (the power is probably about to go out - yes, it is snowing here AGAIN!)

So I just want to say thank you. I'll miss your visits. The silent ones and the commenty ones.

This blog is enough for now as it is. One year. One chapter.

I will still visit you and I will probably start another blog thang at some point.

Email me if you want.

(1)

Swan Song. . .Sorta

Blogger asks:

Q: "You've got to make contact with the alien leader. How will you tell when the conversation is finished?"

A: here.

(2)

dreamtime

it's raining.

not cold not warm.

i am in an alley

on my hands

and knees

writing a letter to you

on the asphalt

in chalk.

yellow chalk.

(3)

Seuss und Steiner

from Kiki Dances by Charlotte Steiner, 1949

The library figured heavily into my life when I was a little kid. We brought home loads and loads of Dr. Seuss for my father to read aloud and every visit I chose a Kiki book also. My favorite was Kiki Dances, but the memory of it was fuzzy until I found a copy of it at a church rummage sale not too long ago. It's hard to explain the feeling of sweet clarity that blasted through my whole body when I opened that book that I hadn't seen since I was four or five.

And then my more analytical eye popped wide open to become aware of how the major theme in my life of not knowing who I want to be or what I want to do, parallels quite fittingly with this 30 page picture book. A little girl who wants to be a grown-up lady, and a cowboy in the rodeo, and a magician, and a tightrope walker and of course a ballerina etc. . .

Plus there's the added after-effects of Green Eggs and Ham and Horton Hears a Who.

(4)

Fashionably late.

Way back in May, Willie & I thought we'd trade portraits in the name of Rama's Portrait Party. But alas, time doth flew. . .

I uncovered this too-pink portrait from my files and figured I'd post it now, as is; all pinky-faced and toothy. His version of a Switchsky is still to come. . . in its own time.

(5)

Cryptic Dance

Image created by and stolen from this friend's defunct blog.

An email arrived from an old friend.

This is all it said:

"There are times fiction defies reality

On occasion

Reality

Is by far

Even more subversive

In some subtle manner

Than fiction."

Any thoughts? Conclusions?

(6)

Fwd:

Over at Kerstin's blog I read about a pay-it-forward game. She invited me to play. I hadn't signed up, but she sent me a special invitation to join in and I couldn't resist.

Wanna play?

Here are the rules:

"I will send a handmade gift - it could be a written piece - to the first 3-5 people who leave a comment on my blog requesting to join this PIF exchange. I don’t know what that gift will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week, but you will receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog. (or Switchsky adds, 'pay it forward' somewhere else in your life...I don't think a blog promise is essential...give me a rule I'll bend it for you.) Just comment here or email me and wait and see what you'll receive by mail."

and Happy Christmas to you all!

(7)

from the stacks

I didn't 'get' reading until I was around 17 years old. It's almost like I was faking it until then. For years I was quite adept at putting words into my head and barely letting them touch me. No satisfaction. No real enjoyment. I think I was suffering from some sort of reading disorder.

Then there was a shift. It may have had to do with all the pot I was inhaling at the time, but I suddenly began to savor words, salivate over an enticing strand of plot and hunger for knotty characters with intricate twists. Even non-fiction affected me in a deeper way than it had before. I had discovered an alternate universe.

I don't read as much as I used to. I have boxes of books stored away. Some I have read and hope to read again. Some I've been carting around for years waiting for a reason to dive in. The Magic Mountain has been with me since about 1980. Unread. I was recently inspired to dig it out and give it a go. It is beside my bed now. Waiting.

(8)

Hannah Hallmark

Hannah has been making the most wonderful birthday cards for the family this past year.

I almost choked on my chocolate cake last night when I opened mine. (cool girl)

(9)

December 22,1962 + 45

(10)

12 Steps

1) Out the door.
2) Turn left.
3) Walk up the hill.
4) Down the other side.
5) Keep walking.
6) Say hello to Crazy Ray.
7) Say hello to his dog, Lady.
8) Turn right at the Baptist church.
9) Pass the ice skating pond and the new fire station.
10) Stand by the river.
11) Breathe for a while.
12) Head home.

Rattled

It's been a busy week. If it was just a list of stuff to do I don't think I'd feel so squinchy and scrambly. It's when the list has emotions and people attached that I feel like this.

Squinchy and Scrambly.

Suzanne!!!

Suzanne with Joy and Crow

This amazing woman is one of the very few people I know on this earth who entirely accepts me.

As is.

The rotten and the lovely.

The mad and the maddening,

The messy bits,

The neurotic bulges, lily-white binges and barbaric behaviors.

She asks hard questions, expects honest answers.

Plus she even laughs at my jokes.

All this even before her new career as a life coach.

Q is for Quiddity

M.took this one. Hot pink beetle turned scarlet with Photoshop.

My new job started yesterday and as I expected the kids are awesome. They had indoor recess, because of the very cold weather and I would've been happy if I could have sat on the floor building stuff with Legos all day with them.

Instead, their teacher handed out another worksheet on the letter "Q."

Happiness is. . .

Right Angle

"Same old eyes, same old world but the difference is how you look at what is in front of you, not what is."

-Lister Sinclair

Oh Brother

I haven't seen my brother in a while. Years. He is busy. We live miles away. We used to play cards and draw and talk and smoke pot and laugh and listen to music and run around the yard hooting like mountain gorillas when it was raining.

Now, none of that. A forced email now and then. When I go home to visit family I need to make an appointment to see him. When we do get together, we still laugh and play, but it's different.

(looking for an old picture of us on the front stoop to post tomorrow)

Who's he?

I don't know why but,

people just slip through my pen.

A philosopher, perhaps?

Gate keeper?

Baby, It's Cold Outside

It is.

Spike Like Snow

Gotta love those floppy lips & smiley teeth!

Dishes Me

I woke up this morning remembering a dream I had that I could read my fortune from the dirty dishes in the sink. You know, kind of like tea leaves in an empty cup?

What did I do?

I stumble downstairs in a crusty-eyed 5 a.m. daze and stand by the sink drawing a sleepy picture of my dirty dishes. It is freezing and I need to build a fire and Spike is sniffing me in a way I don't appreciate and the cat wants to eat and I've got an idea for a project and someone left the butter out last night and I can hear Hannah's alarm clock's monsterous beeping and I am worried about the computer crashing and now I think I know what my dream was about.

Just this.

Without Nap

Stretch

"There's nothing so terrifying as the burden

of a great potential."

- Charlie Brown

dec. desk

Sometimes I think it's best to just take a moment and stand on my chair and look down on the lovely chaos below.

Up Yours

They say if you look up and put your hands in the air that it is nearly impossible to feel depressed.

But a difficult task while driving, or in the supermarket, or at work.

Seems a little desperate, doesn't it?

10 tens

"The soul can become a reality again only when each of us has the courage to take it as the first reality in our own lives, to stand for it and not just 'believe' in it."

- James Hillman

Hello

It's a funny thing this blogging.

I tell you things I might tell a good friend.

I share my secrets, and stories and confusion

sometimes in ways you can understand,

sometimes in ways that might make sense to only you

sometimes in ways that are just blatant. Simple.

It is what it is.

And it is all public information. I know that.

But yesterday, someone from around here was reading me from top to bottom.

It kind of freaked me out. I shut down my blog in an odd panic. I suddenly felt like I was standing naked in the dooryard

I don't know why, I have nothing to hide.

It's just weird.

Funny thing.

touched

Months ago I saw the first two books of the Griffin and Sabine series, by Nick Bantock on Ruth's coffee table. I'd heard of the series and had always wanted to read them even though I had no idea what they were about. She sent them home with me and there they sat on my table unread until yesterday when I had a quiet Sunday morning moment. Every word and image soaked in and I cried and cried.

And cried some more.

Shit. I can't explain.

It's good stuff.

Bone aching, metal twisting, heart crashing, soul suffering stuff.

When evolution hurts

Hafiz said, "Nothing evolves us like love."

humph...
don't like it...
don't wanna...
wha wah wa..
I changed my mind.

say my name

Switchsky.
I never said it out loud until recently.
In the car.
Alone. It's a tricky one.

I had a speech therapist when I was about 12.
I had to sit with him once a week in a tiny, white room with orange plastic chairs saying silly, spithy, lispy words inches from his big, nubby mug or into a warpy little metal mirror, or sometimes with another girl who really had a lisp. She'd spit 'she sells sea shells by the sea shore' all over the place. All over my face.