I pretty much did what I wanted to do today. That included going to Fred Meyer to buy myself a gorgeous wild bi-colored dahlia (on sale), making a set of haiku-inspired set of artist trading cards, talking to our neighbor (back from a month-long trip to Texas), eating leftovers, and doing all the dirty dishes throughout the day by hand. I read the entire newly-arrived issue of The Sun. Painted the stoop off the side door I also mopped the bathroom floor, hauled garbage to the curb, and planted the too-tall fennel from a pot (where it was having trouble staying upright) into the garden alley plot. And cleaned all the back yard bird baths and splashed fresh water in every one. I didn’t study poetry, write poetry, write anything beyond a few e-mails and some drivel in my morning journal. I read a bit of news but not enough to make me crazy or depressed. I also didn’t feel very guilty. Why always be judging myself by foolish, fictional standards of what constitutes a successful day?
It’s now evening. I dined early because John is out of town for work. So I’m now outside enjoying a gorgeous, windy night, watching planes come in for a landing as we are on this week’s altered flight path to PDX. I’m listening to the singsong of a neighborhood ice cream truck; this one is playing “My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean.” It’s now nearly six months since we moved from the Coast Range woods.
Autumn evening –
there’s joy also
in loneliness
It doesn’t have to be a negative thing that I enjoy spending so much time in my sanctuary, my haven, my home alone. There’s another ice cream truck. I don’t remember the title of this one’s jingle, only that it’s a cowboy song about the lone prairie: that much bubbles up from my memory. Another plane, Horizon Airlines this time, passes barely a few houses up the street. I’m sure passengers looking out the windows can see the brown of our roof, maybe even the big leaf maple canopy of these three giant trees. The crows arrive to roost in the branches above my head, including Sheryl, the one whose life we saved, the one who surely has some deficiencies the way she carries on, bleating non-stop. Bugs swarm, squirrels cavort, birds hop, the blue hydrangea droops, the miniature clematis entangled with a rose bush blooms. Summer evening and there can be joy in staying put, waiting for the arrival of nightfall, and words.
The above photo was taken by John. Me on the Maria Salute steps, Venice, Italy.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
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