Tag: star

First World Christmas

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First World Christmas

The days are creeping by. The lights are getting brighter. The drummer boy is marching. Angel is singing on high.
The winds blow the words of Christmas. Technology filters its theme. Merry Christmas! Merry Christmas!
Jingle goes the sleigh bells of the south.
Her matriarch long gone.

Daddy’s dead way back when. His bones are naked and cold.
The bird will sing no more. Not that I will hear.
Sister stole the bird to secure her Christmas cheer.
Merry Christmas. Nevermore-Nevermore

Ring the bell for Christmas
Smile – and don’t forget to brush your teeth
Merry Christmas Merry Christmas

I Am An Old Woman

I Am An Old Woman. When I listen to John Pryne’s song, I go somewhere else. A place deep in my being. A road that smells of creosote. A bridge with snakes. A runaway pony, in a ring filled with color. People with cowboy hats and flags and a bingo hall; bowing our heads and being lead in prayer.

High Balls

 

 

I think of my family through the day; way, way too much. I just remembered how my Dad, with drink in hand, would look at me and then at my mother and say ~ “Those Cokes are really bad for the kids.”

 

 

Day One ~ ODE-Eye-Sea

Vogel Drei

Old bones dance like dragon’s teeth
little birds tweet of niggas, hate and whores
who would have thought such pretty birds
had such dirty mouths
with bones that are sponges
and wings that are clipped
the birds, they squawk
like gulls
with rotting fish hanging
from their gaping mouths
I have my spine
I have my orange crush
and under the burden of the sea
I am weightless
drifting
silent
and patient
as only time
can be

Page 2

No pictures here.

Only the ones, in my mind. That’s what I deal with… pictures, pictures and more pictures.

Yesterday, when I sat to meditate, the past eased its way onto my reel. It was black and white.

On an Easter Sunday, when I was maybe eight or nine I was run over by a horse. Actually, it was a big pony. But when you’re little, I don’t think it matters. The bit in the horse’s mouth slammed into my head and I once again, on a holiday, landed in the hospital.

I have a clear vision of looking at someone and they were charging at me. It seemed to be on purpose. Barreling down on me and I couldn’t get away. I was trapped. I was slow. I couldn’t believe it was happening.

I screamed, he did this. He ran over me. He did it on purpose.

Oh no, my mother said. That’s not possible, he would never do that.

Pine bark was part of my memory. I know what a pine bark looks like. I had  run to a pine tree for protection, but it didn’t save me.

No, no one would ever charge a horse at another person and run over them.

This morning’s meditation was uneventful.

Zero and Zippy

Zero had walked a long way. She relied on a cane to hold herself straight. Her bamboo staff, swung with her stride; step, step, step.

After years of traveling life, wandering here and there, her shoulders felt the weight of time.

Zippy was bright and with the skinny legs of a new born colt. He had just begun his walk. He had yet to be bruised or broken. He had spent years on his mother’s milk, playing by the shore, doing childish things as children do.

It was circumstance that brought the two together. They were headed in the same direction. Continue reading Zero and Zippy

A Sprinkle of Love

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If I tell what is true for me, how will I be judged? Aren’t we suppose to be forever sucking it up? Aren’t we suppose to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and do the next right thing? YES. The answer is yes. But can’t it be possible that sucking it up and pulling ourselves up by our bootstraps could be telling our truth. Rather than acting out, getting drunk, hiding our feelings, hiding our past and acting like it all never happened.

After having been in recovery for many years, twenty-one, I have known many people to kill themselves. I wonder how great their pain must have been. I have felt suicidal, but I have never attempted to kill myself. I want to live. I want to continue to have the long periods of good days that I now experience. I want to enjoy my life. And I will.IMG_3669wp

I know that I will always be plagued by the past. It will always haunt me. How could it be any other way. But it doesn’t have to destroy me. It can get better. I am sure of it. These are the attitudes that he didn’t have. Or maybe he did have. But he sought his freedom in money, whiskey, women and power. He died at fifty four. He looked seventy.

Some would have said that he was a successful and self made man. Unfortunately, I will never be able to share that viewpoint. I am suppose to stick to my story. I can remember the last beating that he gave me. I was sixteen. A friend was there to witness it. I stood there and stared off and tried to not look at my friend. The belt was not a surprise and I was numb to pain. I don’t think I even flinched. I think that is where my story truly begins.Where does one go from there. My life started out shattered and numb.

At sixteen I already was dependent on alcohol. Maybe not physically but certainly psychologically. I had a love affair with drugs and a habit of running away from all of my problems. And every problem that I had was unsolvable and insurmountable. I would try. I would put my best foot forward. I would ask questions and inevitably be confused and confounded by life. People would tell me to do my best and that would be good enough. Nothing would hang me up intellectually, more, than the thought of what is my best. I had Catholic rules and Catholic guilt emblazoned on my brain like a ranch brand. I had family loyalty. All of the don’t do, don’t say, don’t tell. I had secrets of which I had practiced burials. I was shot-out from the beginning.

 I had the iron attitude of, I am going to do things on my own. I am going to find my way. I wanted my own identity. I already had a my own reputation.IMG_3695wp

* A Sprinkle of Love is an excerpt from an old journal.
*The truth will set you free, but first it will make you very nervous.
*I share this for those that I love and those that I don’t know who want to be free.
*There’s nothing to fear in God’s good world.

Smoke Stacks, Tea, and the Pan American Highway

IMG_1245I live in a cute house, on a pretty island.

I just keep going from day-to-day, doing the right thing, taking bad pictures, throwing away hundreds and losing thousands.

I lost my photo library the other day.

I told myself, don’t panic. It’s just another tech hoop to jump through.

It’s spring and this is the time, every year, that I start dreaming, even more than usual. I see myself in exotic places. I hear myself saying things like, I know I can go around the world, on very little money, and have a great time!

My imagination becomes fueled, by the scenery projected through television and movies. There’s so many places to see and so little time.

My mind replays days of crossing the Sierras and passing through miles of uninhabited beaches along the Pan American Highway. I’ll never forget the daunting look of the Chiapas, the cobblestone streets of Antigua.

Yesterday, I read in Surf Travel magazine, that few people have the guts, (they used other anatomical parts) to do a road trip. And I agree with them. But I’m not one of those people. I’ve always loved to go. It makes me feel alive. I’ve never been in touch with what makes someone do the same thing, over and over, every day. It has little appeal to me.

The picture above is of our local marina. It’s not a great pic, but you get the point. In the back, on the left you will see the ever-burning smoke stacks of a paper mill. It roars like a dragon. If you were to turn north, from that vantage point, your view would be marred by yet, another mill, spitting and firing.

So, I call all elves and dwarves.

As I sit by the fire of my humble abode, I know, it’s only a matter of time.

I will trade the comfort of my afternoon tea,  for the precarious experiences of the trail .

“How we live seems more crucial than why.”

Hitchhike to California

IMG_7617meThis photo was taken by John Lyman, at my favorite surf break, in Costa Rica. Of all the years I’ve surfed, and all the waves I’ve ridden, I have very few pictures. I have been on waves way bigger than this one. They are burnt in my brain forever. The battle to take the wave, falling over the ledge, and the drama of hanging on, is part of my senses.

A captured moment, such as this, can pull the memory trigger on not just one wave, but dozens.

I’m fortunate I have this image at all. I had to pay to get it.

I am not a ripper. My claim to fame, use to be, that I would charge waves that women were not on. But that’s history; something way in the past. For one, I’m not aggressive for bigger waves and two, the line-up can be filled with women.

I still sit out and wait on the set waves. I always like it when I get the wave of the day. But more and more, as my boards get longer and longer, I try to style it, on small waves. They make me laugh.

Each and every wave has a life of its own.

Every surfer is photo worthy.

As a photographer, I spend my time, working to capture the best of a surfer’s abilities. It takes time, patience, and sometimes giving up shots of the better and best surfers. I ply my trade on the beaches of Amelia Island.

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That and five dollars will get me a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

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If you’re hitchhiking to California, and you put your thumb out, then no one gives you a ride ~  If you stop walking you will never get there.

I don’t want to stop my photography, no matter what!

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White Water Woman

I’m sitting in my comfortable living room. My husband is watching, The Hobbit, on our HD flat screen. I often find myself transfixed, by the updated, colorful, experience of the new televisions. Not to mention that this particular movie is about Bilbo Baggins, the traveling Hobbit, along with his friend Gandalf, the Wizard, dwarves, elves, forests, animals; all in constant adventure mode.

And to think, TV‘s did not exist when my mother was born. Not to the common household. She recalled listening to Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats.

Time stands still for no one.

At my age, time has taken on a new meaning. I was forewarned that it would ~

Earlier, I went on a drive-by, scouting for surfers. I found the waves small, blown out and empty. However, yesterday was more fruitful.

I ran into a white water, woman surfer.IMG_3693 She was unloading her board, at one of the local breaks. Like I’ve said before, until someone surfs, you can never be sure of their ability. I drove to the pier and turned around. She was out catching waves when I got back.IMG_3694She’d catch the wave, get to her feet, and ride it as far as she could.IMG_3690Then, she would go back out and do it again.

I was impressed. That’s how you do it! That’s surfing. That’s salt water therapy. That’s stoke. That’s a real surfer.

Everyone starts somewhere, and there are people all over the world, catching waves, in the white water, right now!

Unfortunately, right now, there is also, a terrorist who has undone the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

As I drove in my car this morning, I was listening to NPR. They were discussing the happenings of last night. The people had been held hostage, while robots were used to scour the streets for bombs.

Three, once beautiful, young people are dead and 170 wounded in Boston.

This is what I came home to yesterday. The media has been relentless.

I talked to the white water, woman surfer briefly after taking her pics. She told me she was surfing her way up the coast to Massachusets.  She seemed so independent and carefree; the basic nature of most surfers.

I wonder how this happening will affect her trip.

Everything seems so sunny and breezy here.

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What a Weird World