Month: December 2024

This was my last day at the gym just one week ago. Then off to have coffee in town. I step out of my car to this each morning.

I felt sinus pressure the day after the gym and took recommended meds for it. Then settled down to drawing leaves in a new section of the six way book. Every day more of my dried leaf collection was added. Good thing I save interesting dead leaves because the pickings for fresh are slim outside this time of year. So here they are. Of course the first would be gum leaves.

Then right before heading to Asheville for a doctor appointment this week, I decided to take the home test for Covid. Messaged my doctor, canceled Asheville appointment and decided a good nap would take care of it. No one else I was near seems to have come down with the virus. I will wait until Saturday to test myself again. Amy, Patrick and Marla still plan on coming down for Christmas and will be here Monday evening. I will keep my distance when they are in the house if I still get a positive result Saturday.

In the meantime, I have the best company.

So far I have heard all the audio books that were saved on Libby (the library lending system). Did you know that Agatha Christie could tell an entire story using conversations? Never, he came through the door wearing a green hat. But, “Did you see the green hat he was wearing when he came in.” She rarely has to describe anything, especially feelings. She just lets the characters prattle on until the story is told. Fascinating. So if I was reading her book instead of listening to it, there would be loads of quotes and he said, she saids.

People have been kind to make recommendations but unfortunately they are not available in audio through my library.

So it is back to writing. A new short story is close to being finished. And it is a lovely dreary day for poetry.

Maybe another nap first after a hot cocoa.

Have a wonderful holiday in these times of uncertainty. I still am not watching any news but once in awhile a headline creeps across some of my feeds on Facebook. It does not look good in this new country. But it is what they wanted.

So I will head off to France (my kitchen) for a hot chocolate and join my cats for more naps.

Til later….

The trees are in place. It is the job of Patrick and Marla to set up Christmas the day after Thanksgiving. We had a great meal of Cornish game hens with a brioche dressing, mashed potatoes with leeks and cream cheese, seasoned with rosemary. Roasted carrots with herbs and spices. The dressing, carrots and potatoes were from new recipes we were testing for Christmas dinner. All was delicious. Only failure, total failure, was the dessert of cranberry/ricotta tart. Perfectly awful! So Amy gets the job of dessert for Christmas with her ginger crusted pumpkin pie.

After three days, they were on the road home taking my etching press and screen door I bought and never hung. Now I am planning on closing in the porch. It is too sunny and very, very windy at times making it mostly unusable right when it would be a good idea to sit out there.

Amy and Marla want to do some contact printing with leaves over Christmas. We will have to rely on the flowers at the grocery store but will make a good time of it however and wherever we find plant material. I think I still have a few Eucalyptus leaves from those I ordered a year or so ago. The house will smell wonderful!

So they went home. I went back to the gym in much cooler weather with nice skies.

The cats are loving hanging out near the fireplace.

I have counted up 27 new poems since my poetry book was published…Inner Navigations by S. Webster. So soon I hope to have another book of poems ready to put together. I am also working on another short story. I have missed writing but find with divorcing myself from all news and keeping to a somewhat more reclusive life, my mind has been freed up to just carry on.

The weather has been quite cold and not inviting for walks around the neighborhood. But each lap through all the rooms of the house is 250 steps, so I manage to keep up with getting 8,000 steps per day on weekdays.

Here are two new poems: The first is a rework of the Outback poem written several years ago. Back then it was kept short to fit in an artist book of long landscape illustrations.

The second is from a question Patrick asked: “Have you ever thought of the smell of sadness?”

Outback

 

Alone with my back to a world left behind,

I walk further down the track.

 

Where it will call to me,

deep and distant at first, then nearer.

 

There!

 

Between the hushed whispers of gum leaves

and water trickling down dry riverbeds.

 

Coming from somewhere out there

is the sound of waiting.

 

Layer upon layer of waiting

 

For mail, for rain, for husbands, for doctors,

for children finally coming back home…

 

I move slowly toward its steady

pulsing breath.

 

Just over the rise ahead, down close to the red sand,

the waiting hums in anticipation.

 

I rush forward, only to find

the sound of waiting has moved on.

S. Webster

 

*Note: I so miss that country and remember how these feelings of the outback came to be. It was my first time there in ’97 and my hostess took me on a walk in the outskirts of Canberra. Once you left the suburbs, it was all distance and quiet. I kept asking if we could just keep going further out into the bush to see what more was out there. She politely declined with a warning that following those desires is what causes people to get lost and perhaps not found. She said it was time to turn back. I heeded her warning then, but over the many times finding myself alone in the bush, I did go further…and then a bit further. There is nothing quite like being alone in the outback of Australia.

And here is my response to Patrick’s question….

 

Smell of Sadness

 

It comes from the barn

or somewhere near there.

 

A brief scent that drifts past her

when hanging clothes on the line

or working in the garden.

 

And when it lingers in the air

for too long

she wipes a tear and wonders

 

what must have happened

to cause this smell of sadness.

S. Webster

Back to writing now. It is almost one o’clock and there is plenty of time to lose myself in a fictional life.

Til later….