I've declared today "opposite day"!

"It's opposite day!" Or so my son informs me on occasion, when a response of mine doesn't meet his expectations. For example, "No, you may not watch cartoons right now." "Well, it's opposite day, mommy, so that means your telling me I can watch cartoons." Nice try, kiddo. Creative, and I admire your ingenuity but...no.

I'm stealing his idea, though.

Here's how it works. There's dust on just about every surface in my house. Clutter abounds (I think it's mating and multiplying as I type). There's dog slobber shining on my couch, and I'm watching my cat obsessively like her navel (do cats have navels? hmmmm....must look that up later...did I mention my adult ADD?).

Amidst all of this, I have my feet up and I'm drinking a beer, watching my son and our pup run back and forth across the screen that is my living room window. I'm not moving. I'm pleasantly typing away, considering a scrapbook project, enjoying the silence...before the Pokemon cartoons begin and my husband gets home and the chores begin. Of course, I suppose I have an excuse. I ran (slowly but diligently) a half marathon yesterday. So, right now, I feel as if I wrestled an angry polar bear, and lost. I can hardly bend over, and getting up out of my chair is not really something I'm looking forward to.

So what does all this have to do with "opposite day"? Well, what I'm doing is completely against my nature. See, I'm like a rabid terrier when it comes to being productive. I walk through the front door after a long day at work, take one glance at the state of the house, and begin tidying, vacuuming, doing dishes, washing clothes. I basically ruin my own night before I even have a chance to salvage it.

Right now, it's taking every bit of my inner strength to stay seated, enjoy an adult beverage, and watch the young ones chase each other in the front yard. In fact, I think I might even be shaking a bit, trying to keep my brain on lovely, relaxing things that have nothing to do with that dirty word "chores".

So as of today, I am deeming Monday "opposite day". It's a day I'm not particularly fond of anyway, so it can use all the help it can get. A make-over like this might just be what it needs. From this day forward, when I walk through the front door on Monday, I'm going to do exactly the opposite of what I would normally do. I'm going to leave my work bag by the door, unpacked. I'm going to settle myself on the couch or in my craft room and do what I want. I'm going to resist the very real, and compulsive urge to clean or organize something. And I'm going to notice the world around me, and appreciate it.

Period.

Happy Monday, people.  And happy "opposite day"!

For good measure...it's also Monday "literary fortune" day (hey, they say it takes 2 weeks to create a habit, and since I'm only doing this on Monday...that means it's likely to take me 14 Mondays to get this down).

I did my usual...walked into the "library" (which is also our family office, my craft room, and the place where everyone in the family, including the pets, drops "everything"....so it's basically always a mess), grabbed the first book that approached my hand (I think they call to me, but it could just be the stress talking), and let the book fall open. Today it's Richard Jones' poem "Moving Day" from his collection The Blessing. It's one of my favorite collections...a "go to" for me. The poem was interesting, though...especially as a "fortune". I'd post the entire text of the poem, but as I don't want to violate copyright laws...I will simply share the end (guess you'll have to buy the book to get the full meal deal).

It's an interesting one to interpret. As I'm not moving anytime soon, I might see within these lines a bit of advice...to seize the space we have - the parts of it that matter, the people and the simple beauty - and avoid the "as it always could have been" that we only see in retrospect. 

Ahhh...the wisdom of poetry. Never ceases to amaze me. It fills in the spaces that normal conversation cannot. It is the pause in the music, the unexpected breeze on a hot day. It sustains our souls and lingers like a broken heart. 

And with that...I say good night. 

Bittersweet firsts

There's the first word, the first step, the first time he says, "I'll do it myself!" with an air of such determined independence that you're taken aback. The first skinned knee, the first solo bike ride (sans training wheels), the first day of school, the first lost tooth (see above).

A string of firsts that are amazing, bewildering, and uplifting. A string of firsts that also break your heart, just a tiny bit, because you know, there will never be another first word, or first step, or first lost tooth. And...it means he's growing up.

With every first, he moves just a few steps further into the real world, and just a few steps further away from the nest.

Ultimately, that's the goal, right? To help them find their wings, raise them in just the right way that they know when it's time to fly on their own, welcome them back when they need a rest.

But, it's hard.

Right now, I know about all the firsts...and most of them are positive...though of course there's the first fall, the first time he got grounded, the first time he said a naughty word, the first time another kid pushed him and made him cry. The first time I held him after surgery, the first bug bite, the first joke he made up by himself, the first time he was defeated on the wrestling mat.

There are hundreds still coming...the first broken bone, the first sleepover, the first crush, the first time behind the wheel, the first broken heart.

I collect all of his firsts in the back of my mind. They aren't the totality of his existence, after all, they are only firsts...but they are the stepping stones of his life. Some are solid and dry. Others are slippery and dangerous. Some are easy to find...and still others are almost too deep in the water to find. But, they are all there. Waiting. Waiting to be found and tried.

Books are my fortune-tellers

Books hold the wisdom of the world that cannot be held by time. Time is fleeting. Thoughts are transient. But books...words on paper...they last. They transcend.

And the wisdom held in books has the capacity to morph -- to bend to the reader's need.

I can pull a book off the shelf and read it 15 years after the first perusal, and in its pages I will find fresh meaning and a new kind of expectation. I may ultimately know the end, but the journey, the part that really counts, will be fully changed to accommodate who I have become as a reader...and a person.

I have a tendency to write in my books. I know for some this is sacrilege, but to me, it is communion -- a close conversation with the writer...the character. It is how I talk to the book, and how I lay a foundation for later re-reading. And it's one of the things I like best about used books - knowing someone else has been there before, touching those words with their eyes, hoping to find something.

So, when I draw a book from the shelf, let it fall open, and run my eyes along the page until I find it...the word or phrase or quote that stops me...I think it makes sense to call it "fortune-telling". Words are precious...and because of this, books are gold mines...a place where a reader can make a fortune in thoughts.

Today's book fortune comes from Elizabeth Wurtzel's Bitch:

Literary fortunes, Seamus Heaney, and art as a means to an end

For awhile, on my poetry tumblr site, I was doing these "poetry fortunes." So much better, really, than a stale, yellow cookie with a piece of advice or an obvious bit of information inside. I close m eyes, spin in a circle, run my fingers along the spines of my books, pull one down, let the pages fall where they will, and open my eyes. Whatever I find there, I mine for meaning and consider ways I might be able to apply it to my day or my life. Really, it's an interesting way to start a day, and it always makes for deep thinking during down time. This bit is from "Harvest Bow" by Seamus Heaney (one of my great literary loves). "The end of art is peace." It's a line that tugs at the corners of my brain because it could mean so many things. I consider the "means to an end" and that "end" being art...which invariably leads to a sort of "crazy" that is necessary to life. Without art, we cease to be human...we cease to seek peace, love, war.... In our hands, we hold the power of creation, and when we create well, we feel the satisfaction of our production. For me, it isn't the harvest bow, but rather a completed scrapbook full of important moments collected and arranged lovingly and artfully...or a poem...or, yes...even a blog post.

The Harvest Bow

As you plaited the harvest bow
You implicated the mellowed silence in you
In wheat that does not rust
But brightens as it tightens twist by twist
Into a knowable corona,
A throwaway love-knot of straw.

Hands that aged round ashplants and cane sticks
And lapped the spurs on a lifetime of game cocks
Harked to their gift and worked with fine intent
Until your fingers moved somnambulant:
I tell and finger it like braille,
Gleaning the unsaid off the palpable,

And if I spy into its golden loops
I see us walk between the railway slopes
Into an evening of long grass and midges,
Blue smoke straight up, old beds and ploughs in hedges,
An auction notice on an outhouse wall—
You with a harvest bow in your lapel,

Me with the fishing rod, already homesick
For the big lift of these evenings, as your stick
Whacking the tips off weeds and bushes
Beats out of time, and beats, but flushes
Nothing: that original townland
Still tongue-tied in the straw tied by your hand.

The end of art is peace
Could be the motto of this frail device
That I have pinned up on our deal dresser—
Like a drawn snare
Slipped lately by the spirit of the corn
Yet burnished by its passage, and still warm. 

Images of my life

So much is held by the eye that cannot be explained in words. If we are inclined, dedicated, and able...we try. But always, we have the disappointing knowledge that our mouths and fingers will fail to communicate the entirety of our experiences.

Our husky-mix, Kira (who just recently passed and now has a place in the garden next to Emma) and her little buddy, Mosin. This shot captured both of their personalities so well...one wistful and calmly interested, the other highly inquisitive. Pets can truly be a window to ourselves...maybe even a bit of a mirror.

Reading in our house is of paramount importance. A nightly ritual and place to go early in the morning before the world has begun to spin. Poetry, especially, holds a place dear to my heart, and to see it in the hands of a child, loved and enjoyed, is definitely smile-inducing.

Nothing says "Happy" quite like a smiling cat. I actually took several shots in an attempt to get him with his eyes open. But every time, they closed with the flash. As I flipped through the images, it struck me that this photo was perfect just the way it was. Utter contentment. A moment in which to pause and stay awhile.

This was just a few weeks before we lost her. She just seems so far away and well...ready to go. Which, in reflection, I can now see she was. Funny how we don't see things that are right in front of us when our minds are just not ready to digest the information provided.

I used my son as a subject at the park one afternoon. Several great shots came out of that day, but this one still makes me smile. That perfect satin skin, those lashes, and that innocent admiration of the simplest things. It's the only thing that takes me back to those times in my own life...watching him.

I have a weird inclination toward photos of old shoes. Not sure what the draw is, but I love this pair of my son's. Bright blue, like his eyes. And who doesn't see "art" in a pair of well-loved Converse?

A blurry action shot, for some reason this one grabbed me. Even though I didn't intend the hazy appearance, it seems fitting for the moment...high energy and fast-moving. I love watching my son play sports, especially when he's in the zone. At this point, he was without the help of a coach, when the other kid had his yelling out instructions and advice. I was having a hard time trying to photograph the match and be his coach (where the hell was he, anyway...we'll never know). That's why all the images turned out so blurry. Mom, yelling "Hold him! Keep on your feet!!! Don't let him turn you!!!" just wasn't conducive to clear, crisp photography.

Another shot from that same afternoon at the park. For some reason I like the profile shots. A little soft around the edges because of the movement of the swing, but such a sweet, happy smile.