the pelican

once more with feeling

make a wish

how it is. how it was. how it could be.

how can it all be . . .

things to do things to say things to get done. people to see. scheduled stuff. weekend plans and mother’s day and concert tickets and dusty house and stacks and stacks of books and laundry and yardwork and watching the clock watching the clock time’s a-wasting.

a certain amount of brief introspection, ever so important to maintain an awareness of mind.

there is a need to indulge. to acknowledge the need for understanding. to sort things out.

what is it that is happening? why does it hurt?

nick lowe says you got to be cruel to be kind. it means that i love you.

but it had a feel to it. something not quite identifiable. attraction and repulsion. the dance. the tango. the act itself.

but there was more. something else. something much deeper. something at the core.

ascension and then the descent. incarnation. the compassion before moksha. a return.

limitless. selfless. honest and true.

a sense of purity in purpose.

luminescence.

maybe it was love.

it was.

it is.

there it is.

a constant within the ebb and flow, the flux, the waves of emotion. one strong bass note. a magnetic force that pulls the return to earth. into the depths of sensation and the bright shining light of perception.

the unmoved mover.

presto change-o and voila.

this roller coaster of life these highs and lows this in breath and out breath.

to feel. to see. to smile.

pressing through. a desire to experience. a desire to share. a desire to serve.

to be of use. to be needed. to fill a void. have a purpose. provide a meaning.

such bittersweet longing always out of reach unrequited grasping grasping grasping striving towards the object the object the object of desire.

but it’s only desire.

intention.

probably just trying to make it interesting for the witness. it’s all part of the show. the magic. the illusion. the distraction.

but at the heart at the heart where everywhere is the center at the heart at the heart there it is.

the experience will always come full circle with a conscious return.

there is no going back. we believe there is a forward but really it is only an onward.

but the awareness is where the bright shining moments live.

so whatever the outcome let me have no regrets. let whatever comes be seen for the beauty that it brings. let all the pain and sorrow be transformed with compassion and understanding. let everything pass as it should as it will as it does. let the searching the striving the struggling be done.

may the dance continue forever and ever.

amen.

 

posted by: limine at 14:03 | link | comments (3) |

slumgullion

the trees are snowing and the house is filling up with soft little piles of the stuff. flying fluffy poofy floofy stuff. in the window sills, in the corners, under the furniture. sitting upstairs in my little alcove watching the tree snow float by the windows like a heavy blizzard in the sunshine.

something about sundays. something about this day of rest. day of thanks. day of projects. day of laundry. day of baseball. day of making soup. day of reading. just has a certain feel, Sunday does. sort of a day off get it done fill the day with a family dinner or dismantle the car or work in the garden or curl up with a book day. door open to the backyard, cats dashing in and out, tree fluff flying.

sunday mornings start late. bit of sleep in, depending on the activity of the preceding saturday night, followed by lots of tea and some sort of more complex than usual breakfast slash brunch preparation and consumption and reading of the paper and listing to public radio and petting of kitties and more tea and then the soup making begins.

today the soup's identity has yet to form. originally planned a corn potato soy milk chowder, but this was struck down with a grimace and an i'll-only-eat-it-if-i-have-no-other-choice look. white bean green chili is possible as all the ingredients are available, but there are some cabbage and carrots and mushrooms that need to be used. the soup is nebulous yet. anything could happen.

and there's bound to have a bit of tree fluff in it as well.

almost always start with some onions and herbs and garlic browning in a little olive oil. sometimes peppers. sometimes chilis. sometimes walnuts or pecans or pinons. love to chop the colorful little piles of veggies. often brown those a little for a while, then sort of steam ‘em with some cheap cardboard box wine i keep on the top of the top of the fridge for easy access. sometimes add some apples, or apple juice. or a tomato sort of base or sauteeing mushroom juice. sometimes veggie bullion. sometimes some fish sauce. sometimes some tamari. salt. water. then the barley or the basmati or the lentils or the beans. and then the long simmering. then the not-to-be-cooked-for-too-long veggies or potatoes.

the soup production is necessary for lunch for the work week ahead. it's never quite the same. the soup, that is. can never make the same soup twice. there are batches. that is all. same is true of the work week as well. anything could happen. litigation is so manic.

like last thursday -- colorado paralegal day. oh yeah. supposed to be special. supposed to be recognized. uh huh. and i spent the morning first being yelled at by an attorney about doing a designation of record for an appeal in federal court and trying to explain to him that we don't do one, we do a separate bound volume of excerpts and relevant pieces of the record but i wasn't communicating well and he was in a hurry to get a lot of stuff done because he was leaving town and i wasn't making sense and i had my doubts i did i hadn't done a federal appeal in a few years, and the ones i had worked on before were mostly 9th circuit not 10th and i was unsure of myself and he is kind of intimidating he's so smart so brilliant he's a writer he has the gift and i respect him so much and to lose his confidence was sort of rattling and then and then and then there was more everything just continued to disintegrate throughout the day a hearing didn't go well and an elderly client was having her bank account garnished and we didn't get our judge the one that knows all the pieces to this puzzle it was some stand-in and it didn't go well and suddenly there had to be a bond in place pronto and some sort of panic with financial discussions with underwriters and underinsurers and all sorts of paperwork in breakneck time which then turned out to not be the answer after all and then there was the situation of the expansion opening of the another office in the mountains and dealing with the ad for the yellow pages and we need to have the address before we can get a phone number and we need to have the phone number before we can place the ad and we got a deadline but now it has to happen really fast because they're going to go on strike and we have to make up our minds and have it all together by Friday and it went on and on like that one emergency after another all day and and and and then then i got to ride the bus home in the rain without my coat getting soggy cell phone not working running out of batteries and at some point at some point at some point you just have to laugh.

but today is sunday. today's project in the cleaning out of the shed. and soup on the stove. laundry in the dryer. cats in the grass. clouds and sun and tree fluff stuff in the breeze. a day of rest. a day of projects. a day of laundry. a day of making soup.

and late in the day a bit of driving out to spend some money buying old records. cd's of old record collection stuff. plan on some bruce. yeah. born to run. and darkness of the edge. one of the attorneys at work got me thinking bruce. thinking about it can hear it starting born to run the screen door slams mary's dress waves like a vision she dances across the porch as the radio plays roy orbison singing for the lonely hey that's me and i want you to want me and oh yeah i still know all the words. all of it. just comes flowing back. floating in on the tree snow in waves of thunder road, badlands, born to run, jungleland, and man it brings back some old times early high school times concerts and wild friends and cars and driving around at night listening to music and the stuff we used to do it's amazing i made it out alive sometimes i think it's amazing i am here now so much has changed so much is still the same i didn't get very far didn't move far away have to wonder have to think about it. bruce is such a poet. such a romantic. mystic and idealistic and full of passion and heart and the old bruce crowd at that show at red rocks when i was in high school i was there i wasn't old enough to drive yet wasn't even full didn't fill redrocks out didn't even sell all the tickets but what a loyal psyched bunch of rowdy revelers we were we were that was then and he played rosalita of course and i remember how we camped out all night for tickets and remember another one a bruce concert at red rocks that was a bit later sold out two shows had to go to both two nights in a row and it rained and rained and rained we spent the whole night outside soaked to the bone standing around in plastic trash bags and they mopped waves of water off the stage and bruce came out and he sang who will stop the rain yeah he did a little credence and then he does sea cruise won't you let me take you on a sea cruise and that was then that was a long time ago and here i am here i am making soup and doing laundry and it's a sunday.

day of rest. day of projects. tree fluff in the air floating by back door open cats in the grass it's a sunday.

got a rhythm to it, sunday. has a day of awareness of the week ahead. hard to stay in the present of the beauty of sunday. the pull into the deadlines approaching, all the stuff that needs to happen this week and things to remember and things to accomplish and slowing down enough to pay attention pay attention. thistle and shamrock on the radio on sundays. yeah. sweeping the floor, doing the mop thing. sunday day of rest.

feels slow and quiet and unrushed. slowing down from the anticipation of monday, sunday dreams backwards and forwards with soft dance of ghosties of sundays past. the lighting the familiary feel of old sundays desperately writing papers for class on monday. family dinners in the afternoon. want to hear more old music. tune it in. bring it back. where'd it go? time shifts so fast everything melds and folds and flows and goes and goes and goes.

back to the present. back to sunday. day of rest. day of projects. day of planning. day of nostalgia. day of making soup. tree fluff in my nose in my hair sticking to the wet mopped floor clinging to the curtains piling up in the corners. lilacs in the front yard. dandelions fuzzing. dogs barking. kids in the park playing soccer. neighbors listening to some loud sort of hip hop salsa type thing. brandon so polite only 6 years old very intelligent very articulate watches all the extended lord of the rings dvd's back to back just like me he knocks on the front door he says he's so cute he says i have been concerned he's less than four feet high he says i have been concerned about that blue ball in your front yard it's a rubber ball it's very blue well yes i say yes i don't know whose ball that is he said yes he has been concerned and thought it was good ball and i said yes it does seem to be a good ball it probably needs to be played with yes he says yes i have been concerned about that ball and i say brandon just take it honey it needs to be played it's what it's for and he is quite excited he is always welcome in our yard his mom comes over and trims off some lilacs he is bouncing the ball down the path in the park and then back between the houses and back out into the park never losing sight of the house always staying on this side of the bridge he looks back his mother's watching he bounces the blue ball back towards me and he says it's snowing out here the trees are snowing and i laugh and it's a sunday. day of rest. day of projects. day of soup. tree fluff snowing. monday tomorrow, but it's still sunday now.

yeah something about sundays. 

has a flow. has a feel. always hits me with some sort of bittersweet longing for more time combined with an overwhelming sense of gratitude for sundays past and yet to come. something about sunday. day of thanks. day of rest. day of soup.

sunday.

posted by: limine at 01:38 | link | comments (9) |

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