21 Thursday Mar 2019
Posted in Spring
Wish it were warmer but spring is shy, and the wind still skims across snow banked in shadows.
Hope you’re feeling a sense of renewal, of hope, of possibility. May we all find these things in the longer days.
Photo by Valeria Boltneva on Pexels.com
16 Saturday Mar 2019
Posted in Metaphors, Random Thoughts
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Having survived the bomb cyclone, I’m peering out the windows of my house in search of spring. Or in search of something.
January went walkabout on the veldt, its hiding places unknown. We had to send adjustment officers to drag it back. Short February lasted at least three icy months, its breath evoking a heightened sense of something in the shadows, lending a gothic tinge to the seemingly endless span.
Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com
Now the sun shines, but not yet on everything. And we’ve been told to watch for an appearance by the Worm Super Moon on the twentieth. How appropriate. (No insult to worms intended. I am a founding member of the Worm Rescue Squad.)
Times lurches forward in fits and starts, with some certainties: newly minted tax forms, long may they fold. More investigation reports. More candidates. More waiting.
Leave it to a poet for a sum-up:
“But the sunshine aye shall light the sky,/As round and round we run;/And the truth shall ever come uppermost,/And justice shall be done.”
Eternal Justice, Stanza 4
Charles Mackay (1814–1889)
Hope he’s right.
28 Friday Dec 2018
Posted in Life, Metaphors, Random Thoughts
The days between Christmas and the New Year hold ghosts of past events and restless shadows of what’s to come. Fun’s to be had and still-on-vacation kids are quick to grab at it. Nostalgia gathers in corners, hovering in case memories and distance-pangs evoke tears.
Duty waits in hallways, tinging the air with a faint scent of reckoning: tucking away the excesses of the holidays; finding dreaded proof for life narratives…taxes. Holiday lights sparkle enough to weaken such seriousness, but cannot banish it.
Winter settles in, at least here in Colorado. Wind attacks leaves left like confetti, gathers cold behind clouds and aims it toward naked trees and hatless heads. New light arriving with the solstice hasn’t yet the strength to pull at time.
Soon…soon the short, sharp months of the early year will streak into lives grown lazy with celebration. Measures to be taken, notions to harden into resolutions. Scales to be polished, treadmills eyed.
And a slow missive will be dropped into the year-mail to make its way through days and weeks. A warm breath will hint of promises to come, a smile will be glimpsed as light lengthens.
We’ll wait for Spring.
10 Monday Dec 2018
Posted in Wisdom Court, Yvonne Montgomery mysteries
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It’s beginning to look as though gifts should be chosen.
If you’re looking for ghostly fun, try my Wisdom Court books: Edge of the Shadow; A Signal Shown; All In Bad Time. They’re available as ebooks, as well as in trade paperbacks and hardbacks.
My two Finny Aletter mysteries, Scavenger Hunt and Obstacle Course are also available in ebook format.
My books can be purchased at amazon.com
And a very merry holiday season to you all.
01 Saturday Dec 2018
Posted in Random Thoughts
Even in the cold, a whiff of anticipation scents the air.
13 Tuesday Nov 2018
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And the night sky leaches color like a wound loses blood. But sharp shades cluster along the horizon before black and purple spread over the world. Night approaches like a wave coming for stragglers limping toward cliff’s edge.
Morning strives to make up for the night before. Peach and gold light the east, and filigree clouds promise glory as the day shakes itself awake.
So short a time breathes between morning and dusk. Life thrums with extra urgency under humdrum rhythms of must and can.
Spices scent air sharp as a blade, sometimes masking the musk of death. A march toward the end of the year gains depth and width, and wind rearranges the bodies across the ground.
Winter is coming, starting cold, endings promised in the air.
01 Thursday Nov 2018
Posted in Random Thoughts
Here we go again, trying to get back to regular posting. What’re the odds? During this most fraught month of the year, pretty good. Not today, for I’ve used up my brain cells sorting through the papers on my desk. But isn’t that a good sign? Yeah.
So, for now, an image and a promise.
Watch this space.
09 Sunday Sep 2018
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Or so it seems to me. Having spent so many years in school, September is my January and I feel a surge of possibility when it rolls around. The temperatures may still be in the eighties, but I envision digging out sweaters and jeans. I can almost smell chalk in the air and hear bells ringing to signal class changes. (Or my ears are finally going the way of all flesh.)
A few ideas are rumbling through the empty halls of my brain and I’m looking forward to exploring them. All I have to do first is pull weeds and clear out our old back porch so it can be torn down. A new porch will be built after that. Strictly speaking, that means September will be filled with all sorts of tasks that will stand in the way of writing much. But, that means the beginning of this creative year will actually be in October, a month I dearly love. So, still things to look forward to.
Watch this space.
15 Wednesday Aug 2018
Posted in Hope, snark, Uncategorized
…finish with a hellish cold and call it all shitty.
Nah, not all. June brought Bob’s and my fiftieth anniversary, which we celebrated by taking the train to Glenwood Springs. When in doubt, find water…really, really hot water. We parboiled our way through four days and chugged home, at certain points traveling 25 MPH because the tracks were so hot in the 90-plus temps. We couldn’t risk bending them by going fast. True story.
July brought some rain, some hail, some corn on the cob, some strawberries. Once again I managed to kill numerous plants through a dearth of assiduity. (Hah! I looked it up after I typed it and was right in both spelling and meaning–that I forgot, was gone, was too much of a jerk to follow the watering schedule.)
August brought the cold from hell, simply because my immune system was bored. I’m going to the State Fair to compete in the mucous-producing
Photo by Public Domain Pictures on Pexels.com
competition. It’s gross, but the sashes are stunning.
I know it’s time to move on because I’m beginning to wish I could wear jeans again. (Aren’t these little life milestones entrancing?) I know I’ll be more creative–as in actually writing, for instance–and life will have more zing, too, when I can crawl back into the jeans.
Maybe next time I’ll torture my remaining readers…are any of you out there?…by writing a take-off on What I Did on My Summer Vacation. Snorking, gagging, and using tissues will be prominently featured.
Doesn’t the woman look cute blowing her nose? You ought to get a load of me.
Cough.
05 Thursday Jul 2018
Posted in books, Books I like, Reading
Tags
Sunrise at Haystack Rock on Cannon Beach Oregon
I know, I know. I said I was going to get back to the regular blog posts, but then we hit June. We’re talking graduations, birthdays, anniversaries…and did I mention that my sweet husband and I celebrated 50 years and a few lousy months together? That, too.
Anyway, during all this marking of Important Occasions, I’ve come across one of the best writers I’ve ever read. Louise Perry is Canadian and writes the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache mysteries. I haven’t been this excited since I read Dorothy Dunnett’s books. Perry is a superb writer and plotter, and I’m in love with her characters. I just finished Book 9 of the series and can’t wait to begin Book 10. (I came up to my computer to pay bills and need to get downstairs to watch a movie with my hubs. Will include specific titles next time.)
One of the best things ever is to live in another world created by a first-class writer. I’m having such a great time hanging out with Chief Gamache. Come join me!
And more soon!
Writer in the Garret 