Good News + Pictures I Didn't Post, Nettles, Snippets

This is a hodge-podge post of scattered thoughts.


First time I hit "publish", I forgot to include a piece of good news in the past week: I had a poem accepted for publication! I hadn't submitted anything for ages, but the last submission I made was to Cirque, and they're publishing one of my poems in the Summer Solstice volume! Time to start sending submissions out again...


I'm including three photographs of nettles for the benefit of our friend David, who bravely ate the steamed nettles on a bed of caramelized onions with balsamic vinegar that I served last night, although he was mortally afraid of ending up with botox-lips. He concluded they were delicious--"Now, where can I find some of those?" 
They're everywhere, but if you don't know what you're looking for, how would you know?

I didn't take a photo of the beautiful nettles on caramelized onions, but I hope you can picture it.
I also chose not to take a photo of the mama moose bedded down with two tiny calves right by the highway these last few days. Walking home from my writers' group on Monday, I gave them a wide berth, walking in the middle of the road so as not to come too close. Moments later, mama moose awkwardly lurched upright, put her head down, and moseyed across the highway, leaving two improbably small calves, their umbilici still dangling, milling confusedly on the other side. She stayed over there several minutes. The calves, sensibly, were disinclined to step in the road.
I was so relieved when mama crossed back and rejoined them.  
It just didn't seem right to take pictures. Sorry, guys.

Speaking of pictures, I feel such gratitude for connection. At a time when I'm not very connected even to my own body, and in a limbo of decision-making, it's a good reminder. I'm not a visual person, and I didn't even catch that the photos of the two breakfasts in my previous post, light and dark respectively, were highly symbolic, until my giftedly visual friend Terry pointed it out. Thus artists collaborate, thus our own best work is more than what we make it.

Another picture I didn't post--another picture I can't post: I wish I could record and share the sound of the songbirds these days! The piercing plaintiveness of the golden-crown sparrow threads through the melodiousness of the song sparrow, punctuated by the persistent chirrup of the robin, the kazoo note of the chickadee, the throaty croak of the raven. When I'm outside picking nettles, their threading melodies make me feel the webbedness of air, the multidimensionality of sound, gold threads spangling what we think of as empty space. A beneficence.


I'm not doing great this week, and am realistic enough to recognize the unlikelihood of acceptance of my plea to my naturopath to let me stay home and figure this out myself because the whole 'searching for options' is making me worse with the stress. On a happier note, things are coalescing, and clarity is gradually congealing over my possible destination. I won't be able to update my blog initially, for as much as a month. It'll be a different me on the other side, no doubt.


Thank you to everyone who's pushed their comfort zone and talked with me about this. I feel gratitude to have given so many women the opportunity to open up to me about their own like issues. More gratitude for those offering Phil support.

Famous Phil; I Flounder

I've misplaced my camera. I seriously have no idea where it is: haven't seen it since I came home from our Poetry group yesterday, having taken it with me running errands but not even used it. I never lose things! Just like I never leave anything behind, like I did twice during my recent trip... Scary to me it is. And how am I supposed to post recipes or landscape pics now?

Meanwhile, Phil is famous! He's on the front page of the local newspaper...

...and here's a link to the article.

Phil is a very fine public speaker, and could have been an amazing demagogue: he knows almost too much about how people tick (and how to make them tick). It's budget (cut) season again, and with a daughter working at the library and decades of experience as a librarian himself, he went along to the City Council meeting and spoke eloquently and persuasively about why the City should not cut the library's already tiny budget. Evidently he made quite a splash: his presentation was widely cited as key in the Council's decision not to cut the Library budget this year.

I'm proud of him, and it's also thought-provoking and admirable to me that Phil doesn't choose to do very much of this. He knows he's very good at it, but he doesn't enjoy it very much. Generally, Phil is very successful at focusing on what he does love to do, and doing that. Quite a radical choice, when so often the message is that if you have a talent, you are obligated to use it.

I have two or three recipes backed up now that I haven't been able to photograph, plus more holiday goodies. I woke up later than expected this morning, the horror of which it's taken me most of the day to recover from. I have a "packet" due to my mentor tomorrow and an appointment in the morning. I realized today that I have a whole lot more work to do than even I realized for my Linguistics course.
What am I doing on here?

Apologies for this frazzled posting. What do you think? Should someone use a talent they have, or should they choose to do what they enjoy?