Lovely morning over my subdivision. On my way to coffee with the corner crowd. One of them simply cannot resist being one of those annoying evangelicals wanting everyone to believe all the things he reads in “his” bible. I asked, no told, him to just put a sock in it! Is there anything more annoying than being told how and what to believe!
As my basket friends were going home after their conference in Tasmania, the blank parts of the page got to me so I filled in more drawing. It is so peaceful.
Then a bit more baking…..pear in puff pastry.
And a delicious pumpkin cream sauce over pasta and spinach.
I took a more recent picture of myself the other day after seeing on FaceTime an old friend from graduate school. We tend to look a little rough after a certain age so I will put a picture out there now, so we can ease our way into how it will be.
Yesterday I worked on getting 35 poems all in the same font for a new book I am putting together. It will also have several short stories written since my last series of books and a few essays. Something about a good check in the mirror makes me want to “hop” to it. Trouble is the “hopper” has slowed a bit.
I do love my new routine of exercises and punching the bag to get out aggressions. Isn’t it odd how one leg is stronger than the other when it comes to balancing? I am quite sure I used them both the same for the last 81 years…so why is one weaker than the other? I am determined to get it up to speed and perform as expected.
Not sure if I posted this one before. But with Australia on my mind, here is one of the poems coming in the new book. There were six more trips down under after this was written.
Come and Gone in Twenty-Nine Hours
I continue to come back
eight times in thirteen years.
I am more tired
and this tiredness is beginning
to feel familiar.
It is harder to be here alone
and I sense this may be the last time.
I have opened myself to this country
in a deep private and personal way.
But this time I feel the loneliness
of solitude
quietly seeping in.
I am more a foreigner
than I had hoped for.
Australia has not lost its magic.
I am older
and the vision for that magic
is somewhat diminished
due to a combination of age
and awareness of time
that have more or less
besieged me on this trip.
And I am here
on this precious soil
just twenty-eight hours.
I think I am feeling the loss
of this country before I have left it.
Australia feels like an old dear friend
that I am seeing slowly turn away.
Or am I shifting my gaze
toward the comforts and familiarity
of home.
Is it becoming time
to give up the adventure
and content myself with memories
of what we used to be to each other?
I am feeling the loss
with each eucalypt I see
as if for the last time.
I miss it already.
Seems a bit of a sad poem about loss and age. But there is not a time I read these words and not smile. I wrote it in my sketchbook after a long walk to get to a park to just sit down among the Eucalyptus trees. My feet were sore and I was just beginning to feel some of the aches of aging. I love the drama of a woman with sore feet trying to put her feelings into words to look back on.
Anyway, back to the sorting and font sizing needed for the book layout.
Til later…..