Move Ahead

Every morning this week, the whole of my world was shrouded in mist, and not a lacy-like fairy mist, but a thick veil of velvet whiteness covering the road in front of me. I drove into it with only faith directing my course. And all the while, all around me, on the news, in my workplace, along my twitter feed, in private conversations and in large national debates, everywhere, people were lost in their own misty disasters. I didn’t want to write about all that though. So I took a walk and felt the heat of the sun with the suddenly cooler breeze, saw the dirt road stretching up ahead for miles, and thought, here, now, one must feel hope. This post, written a year ago, inspired by two fabulous and courageous and inspiring women, came to mind; came to save me from the despair facing our hurricane battered islands and coastlines, our country split by that divisive businessman turned president, and our personal distress as varied as all hell. This reblogged post could save me from writing about all of that. This post lifted me up, might lift us up. If that is the work of literature, of books, of words, then for now, let that be the work of Nine Cent Girl. Reposted with hope. Faith. Always, love.

Nine Cent Girl's avatarNine Cent Girl

A goal. A destination. A purpose. Life is filled with markers for all of us, from birth to death we move along a continuum of time, looking for meaning. In the beginning, unconscious or conscious, we encounter a string of firsts. First word. First step. First big tumble. First day away from mommy and daddy. The list goes on and on, seeming to stretch far into the milky way with possibility. At least that is the idyllic version we all hope for in life, that doors keep opening while our drive pushes us higher and higher along our projected paths.

dawn

View original post 421 more words

the best birthday girl

Tonight I celebrate my mother’s would be 90th birthday. Yes, I know she’s gone, although a force like hers can’t be contained in a simple afterlife, right? Of course I’m sad not to have her physically with us, but wow, did we have spectacular fun these last many decades. Holidays and vacations and just spur of the minute plans that would always turn into something fabulous.

Collage of Mom photos Continue reading

shit show

It really isn’t because I’m reading Claire Dederer’s latest memoir, Love and Trouble, but I must admit, she’s gotten me thinking. About how I wished I wrote with her daring pen. About all those crazy-ass years when I was running straight into the black, and these slightly more stable years, when some of that crazy is boomeranging back. But it isn’t totally that either, it’s my job and the demands that are clear insanity but you can’t actually admit to it because it’s your job after all and you need to keep it a few more years; it’s the guy in the White House who I can’t bring myself to call president or give his title a capital letter but still, you know he’s there and the whole world is acting like he didn’t in fact steal the election but somehow might be qualified even though he’s the very definition of shit show; it’s about summer’s abrupt end and my love of drinking a tad too much rosé, okay my addiction that hasn’t stopped even though I know better and one should stop drinking Summer’s Water; but ultimately it’s about racing and racing every day ahead of just about every deadline so that I can feel like I have it together but know I don’t. Yeah, today, it’s all of that.

Continue reading