January 20, 2025

Two rows converged in a yellow wood.

I woke up early this morning in a cold house, but a sunny room; the sun was rising.  It was beautiful, all that white fluffy stuff, all those shadows long across the yard, and the left over blonde leaves still trying to stick to the trees.  I went back to bed.  I couldn't face it, couldn't face the fact that I might catch cold and I didn't do anything really to prepare to get out of the driveway.  I slept another 45 minutes and then tried to make sense of my muffled brain.  But the entire day was a struggle not to fall.   

Large prints covered my yard.  It looked like two different animals ran on either side of the house, converged at the swing and ran on up through the back yard.  I wasn't wearing boots and didn't feel I could follow the tracks as much as I wanted to.  I wasn't prepared to uncover my car or follow tracks into the backyard and I am unable to shovel for myself and did not hire any one to do it for me.

So this is actually the 2nd storm of the winter.  The first was Dec. 5th.  Now we dive down into frozen tundra weather.  I need to be more responsible and get some things like a car brush and salt.  Oh Lindy, you amaze me sometimes. You are so self-reliant, so independent and so incapable all in one ball of yarn.  

This is the first inauguration in my life time that I did not watch.  I was thinking about Clinton's first term.  I so did not want to vote for him because his policies on education felt too much like workforce development and I am a long time believer as education as a means of developing a whole person, not a worker.   But that inauguration inspired me.  I watched Maya Angelou read standing their at that spot and I thought, ok, I can stand next to this guy as my president.   But today I couldn't even give it a try, couldn't give it space.  Again, I don't want to be political on this venue, but I needed to voice it.  I am worried about voice being taken away from people.  I have spent my entire professional career helping people find voice and I'm not willing to let that go.   Democracy, freedom is dependent on free speech and we are loosing ours. 

I learned a new form for a poem, I guess I mentioned that last night.  Today I worked on it some.  The first thing I did was go through my journal and find 8 lines, independent lines, that I liked and wrote them all down.  Then I had to chose the one that had big power to me and use it as the first and last line.  Now I have to make a series of couplets It won't get posted tonight, but soon.   

EJ wrote a song today.  I'll ask them if I can share it.  Also did you look at TheTypescript.com ?. They are publishing all of the authors in Valley and Beyond: Writers Read Anthology, editor, Dr. Lindy Whiton, over the next couple of months.  This week is Eirnin Worth and Gray Davidson Carroll.  

Maybe I need a kitten, or maybe just a new pile of fiction I can crawl under the covers with .  

Did I start this blog out tonight telling you I feel like my heart is broken?  It's not that it is broken, but that that crack in it got pushed open a little causing me to jump back and pull my armour on.  Caused me to stop responding with any fluid motion and to hold on tight, not give too much away, protect that piece so it doesn't get too sore.  Yeah, that's the impact of grief on me.  My self protective trigger is very testy.  No, today I needed to back away, not get closer.   I know that love is supposed to be the most important ingredient, but sometimes I feel as though it misses the target, it's kind of just off a little, an ingredient is still missing. And when I feel that hurt, I just have to step back, I have no other choice. That crack is like the cracks in pottery mended with gold.  It won't go away, it's not supposed to.   Yeah, maybe I need a kitten